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E I I E S 



WITH THE FORTUNES, FATES, AND CHARACTERS 

OF 

HIS SII WIVES. 

AFTER THE BEST AUTHORITIES. 



HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, 

AUTHOR OF 'THE CAPTAINS OF THE GREEK AND ROMAN REPUBLICS,' 'MARMADUKE 'WT- 
VIL,' 'THE ROMAN TRAITOR,' 'OLIVER CEOITWELL,' 'THE BROTHERS,' ETO. 



Srzff. 



ff. 



NEW YORK AID AUBURN: 
MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN". 

Hew York : 25 Park Row. — Auburn : 107 Geneseo-st. 

1855, 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred 
and fifty-five, 

BY MILLEE, OETON & MULLIGAN, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New York. 



AUBURN : 
MILLEE, OETON & MULLIGAN, 

6TERE0TYPEES AND PRINTERS. 



TO 

EDITOE OF 
THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER, WASHINGTON, I). C, 

STijfs Volume of tf)e 

MEMOIRS OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH, 

WITH THE 

$r arto-eg, J^teg an§ Q/Jjarac-icrg of jtfg ibis ©Eifceg, 

IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, 

IN" TOKEN OF 

THE SINCERE VENERATION HE ENTERTAINS FOR HIS TALENTS AND CHARACTER, 
AND OF THE HIGH VALUE HE SETS ON HIS FRIENDSHIP, 

BY HIS SINCERE AND OBLIGED 

FRIEND AND SERVANT, 

HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT. 
The Cedars, July 19, 1855. 



PREFACE. 



The Prefatory remarks which I have to offer as an 
induction to this volume, are few, and of small im- 
portance. It appeared to me that there has long been 
a void space in the department of history, which 
could be filled by a work, aspiring to a popular circu- 
lation by meaus of its style and manner, which 
should descend from the grave and somewhat stilted 
dignity of history proper, and attempt something of 
the point and sparkle of fictitious narrative, while 
closely and rigidly adhering to the solid and mate- 
rial truth, which can alone give value to historical 
compositions. 

To ascertain the exact truth on all disputed points, 
I may say that I have spared no pains ; and, I may 
add, that I have aimed at the strictest impartiality. 

The contemporaneous chroniclers and writers of the 
period, not of England only, but of Spain, Italy and 
France, I have carefully consulted. 

The curious and valuable work of my quaint an- 
cestor of Cherbury, has furnished me accurately with 
dates, with details of military events and treaties, 
and with some curious particulars of the costume and 
domestic manners of the day. 

The Romish historian, Lingard, has been consulted 
and weighed as carefully, and received as full atten- 



VI 



PREFACE. 



tion, as the writers of our own church, and with 
profit and advantage, his work being, for the most 
part, as written by an avowed advocate of Papacy, 
honest and candid ; and its investigations being con- 
ducted with justice and temperance. 

To the lighter and more gossipping sketches of the 
lady-biographers of the queens of England, France 
and Scotland, I have also had occasion to refer, prin- 
cipally in relation to the personal qualities and cos- 
tumes of the royal ladies. 

In a word, I have neglected no means of arriving 
at facts which were within my reach, and I have used 
the authorities which I have consulted, with no other 
purpose or desire than that of ascertaining and re- 
cording " the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth," concerning each and every one of the dis- 
tinguished personages who have afforded a topic to 
my pen. 

Some new facts, I believe, I have been so happy 
as to disinter from the dust of time and misrepresen- 
tation concerning those two, most unfortunate and fa- 
tal, Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard ; and, on 
the whole, I trust that I have executed the work in 
such a tone and spirit as shall excuse what faults it 
may possess, and render it not unacceptable either to 
the learned or unlearned of America. 

Henry William Herbert. 

The Cedars, July 20, 1855. 



CONTENTS. 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

RETROSPECTIVE. 

Wai of the Roses — General Effects — "War to the Castle — Gen- 
eral "Wish for Repose — The Rival Factions — Failure of Title 
in Henry VII. — Sons of Edward III. — First Rupture of the 
Houses — Failure of the Claim of Lancaster — True Title of 
Edward IV. — Usurpation of Gloucester — Lambert Simnel 
and Perkin Waibeck — Henry of Richmond not Heir of Lan- 
caster — The House of Tudor — Death of Richard III. — Hen- 
ry's Alleged Titles — Henry King by Possession — Cruel Acts 
of Attainder — Great Opportunities of Henry VII. — His Con- 
duet and its Effects — His Parliaments — His Character, . . 13 

CHAPTER I. 

Death of Henry VII. — Accession of Henry VIII. — His Quali- 
ties and Occasions — Inconsistency of his Career — Gradual 
Deterioration — Discovery of America — Reformation, and Ex- 
tinction of Chivalry — Growing Power of the Masses — Wars 
of the Plantagenets — Want of Policy — Redress of Grievances 
' — Empson and Dudley — Marriage of Arthur and Katharine 
— Transactions for Marriage — Henry VII. and Joanna of Cas- 
tille — Henry's Marriage with Katharine of Arragon — Kath- 
arine Intercedes — Henry's Vanity and Love of Fame — State 
of Europe— The French in Italy— The English Fleet— Fail- 
ure of the Campaign of 1512 — Conflagration of the Regent 
— Rise of Wolsey — The Battle of Ravenna — Prosecution of 
the "War, 1513 — Death of the Lord Admiral — Execution of 



VI 11 CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

the Earl of Suffolk — Invasion of France — Siege of Teroueruie 
— Henry Defies James of Scotland — Battle of the Spurs — 
Surrender of Terouenne — Investment of Tournay — Tidings 
of Flodden Field— The Battle of Flodden Field— The Crisis 
of the Day — The Carnage at Flodden — Capitulation of Tour- 
nay — Policy of Wolsey — Festivities at Tournay and Lisle — 
Negotiations at Tournay — Disruption of the League — "Wed- 
ding of Louis XII. and Man- — Foreign Nationality of Queens 
Consort — Distaste to Foreign Queens — Houses of Bourbon 
and Brunswick— The Justs at Paris— The Duke of Suffolk — 
The Death of King Louis— The Youthful "Widow — Mistress 
Anne Boleyn — Thomas Wolse} 7 , Archbishop — Character of 
Wolsey — Foreign Policy of Wolsey — Battle of Marignano 
— Restitution of Tournay — General Pacification, ... 3-7 

CHAPTER II. 

Second Phase of Henry's Character; — Henry's Mistresses — 
Death of Maximilian — Candidates for Empire — Conference 
of Kings— Idle Profusion — Mary the Beautiful — Henry's 
House at Guisnes— The Field of Cloth of Gold— The Tour- 
naments — Intercourse of the Kings — The Emperor at Calais 
— Queen Claude's Maids of Honor — Henry a Theologian — 
De Septem Sacramentis — Defender of the Faith — An Angli- 
can Church — Wolsey and the Duke — The Duke of Bucking- 
ham — The Prophecies of Hopkins — Trial and Death of Buck- 
ingham — Henry's Succession — State Reasons — Outbreaking 
of War — Conferences of Arbitration — Sentence rendered by 
Wolsey — War in the Milanese — Invention of the Musket — 
Election of the Pope — Pope Adrian — Ireland and Scotland 
— The House of Commons — The Scottish War — Wark Castle 
— The Servants of the House of Tudor — Polemics in His- 
tory — Winter Campaign in Italy — Bourbon Invades France 
— Standing Armies — Forced Marches upon Milan — Mutual 
Distrust — The Battle of Pavia — Francis a Prisoner — A Cap- 
tive King — Lukewarmness of Charles — Royal Suspicions — 



CONTENTS. i x 



PAGB 



Dissolution of the Contract— Bad Faith of both Kings- 
Marriage of Charles and the Infanta— Liberation of Francis 
—Clement VII. a Prisoner— The Maskers at Greenwich— The 
King's "Secret Matter "—First Love for Anne Boleyn— Wol- 
sey's Secret Policy — March of Lautrech — Escape of Pope 
Clement— Siege of Naples— Henry's Latent Character— De- 
lays in the Divorce — Grounds for the Divorce — Fall of Wol- 
sey — Wolsey's Arrest at Cawood — Wolsey's Foreign Corres- 
pondence—Death of Wolsey — Breve by Pope Clement 

Statute of Praemunire — Supreme Head of the Church — Pay- 
ment of Annates Forbidden — Second Meeting of Kings — 
Anne Henry's Mistress — His Marriage to Anne — Cranmer's 
Elevation — Theologians and Canonists — Divorce Pronounced 
— Third Division of his Life, 105 

CHAPTER III. 

Third Phase of Character — The Wonder of Submission — Strange 
Spirit of the Times — Silence in Death — Marriage with Anne 
Legalized — Resistance of the Queen — Double Dealings with 
Clement and Francis — England Emancipated from Rome — 
The two Acts of Parliament — Perfect Success of Henry's 
Schemes — Absolutism in England — His Innate Cruelty — 
The Holy Maid of Kent — Fisher and More — The Persecutions 
— Death of Fisher and More — Interdict of Paul III. — Sup- 
pression of Monasteries — Death of Queen Katharine — Attain- 
der of Anne Boleyn — Decapitation of Anne — Marriage with 
Jane Seymour — Insurrection of the North — Reginald Pole — 
Birth of Prince Edward — Death of Queen Jane — Lady- 
Shew at Calais — Amusements of "Widowhood — Thomas a 
Becket in Court — The Family of Reginald Pole — Anne of 
Cleves — Cromwell Attainted — Religious Terrorism — Katha- 
rine Howard — The Countess of Salisbury — Charges against 
Katharine — Evidences against her — Katharine's Attainder — 
Katharine's Death — Ex post facto Enactment — The King's 
Book — Peace with Charles V. — Katharine Parr of Kendal — 

A* 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

The Children of Henry — Protestant Ascendency — Balance 
of Eeligions— Private Life of Royalty — French Campaign — 
Henry's Succession — Henry's last Peace — Strife of Religious 
Parties — Henry's last Crimes — The 'Ends of Providence, . 196 



KATHARINE OF ARRAGON. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Birth of Katharine — England and Spain — Period of her Birth 
— Columbus in the Camp — Schemes of Columbus — Progress 
of Discovery — False Style of Memoir Writing — Impressions 
of her Childhood — Unprecedented Growth of Spain — -The 
Netherlands added to Spain — Prince Arthur of Wales — Kath- 
arine Lands in England — Spanish Etiquette — English Blunt- 
ness — Katharine's First Marriage — Her Married Life at Lud- 
low — Silence of History in time of Peace — Katharine Dowa- 
ger of Wales — The Bull and Breve of Dispensation — Gen- 
eral Faith in the Virtue of Dispensations — Did she Love him? 
— Her Marriage with Henry — Her Coronation — War with 
France — Katharine Queen Regent — Anne Boleyn — Visit of 
Charles V— The Field of Cloth of Gold— Renewed Peace 
with France — Conduct of Katharine — Conduct of Anne 
Boleyn — The Cardinal Legate — The Legantine Court — Cam- 
peggio — Expulsion from Windsor — Supreme Head of the 
Church — Anne Boleyn's Marriage — Anne's Unchastity — 
Katharine in Seclusion — Cranmer's Decree — Katharine's 
Constancy — Katharine's Testament — Katharine's Death, . 259 



ANNE BOLEYN. 
CHAPTER V. 



Historical Partisanship — Partial and Impartial Judgment — 
Family of Anne Boleyn — Anne's Birth Place — Date of Anne's 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAGE. 

Birth — Anne's First Prospects Matrimonial— Anne's First Love 
— Anne Dismissed the Court — First Advances of the King — 
Anne's Person and Beauty — Her Grace and Accomplishments 
— Small Progress of the King — Anne not a Lutheran — Wy- 
att's Suit — The Game of Bowls — The Sweating Sickness — 
Fall of Wolsey — Lady Rochefort — The Sibylline Book — Anne's 
Marriage — Death of More and Fisher — The Cruelty of Cow- 
ardice — Retribution — Anne's Forebodings — Committee of the 
Privy Council — Confession in Extremis — The First Charges — 
In the Tower — Anne's Admissions — Anne's Trial — Nullity of 
Anne's Marriage — Death and Burial of Anne Boleyn, . . 321 



JANE SEYMOUR. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Blood of the Seymours — Birth and Youth of Jane — Jane's 
Levity — The Causes of her Good Report — Jane's Unchastity — 
Jane's Wedding — The Wedding Day — Parliamentary Flatter- 
ies — Her Bootless Reign — Birth of Prince Edward — Christen- 
ing of Edward — Jane Seymour's Death — The Monuments of 
Queens, 369 



ANNE OF CLEVES. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Henry a Widower — The French Ladies — Polemical Parties — 
The Smalcaldic League — Person of Anne of Cleves — She 
Lands in England — First Interview with Henry — His Dislike 
to her — Vengeance on Cromwell — Cromwell and Barnes — 
Divorce of Anne — The Daughter of Cleves — Her Tranquil 
Life — Her Death and Monument, 391 



Xll CONTENTS. 

FAGS. 

KATHARINE HOWARD. 

CHAPTER VIII. • 

The Birth of Katharine — The Childhood of Katharine — Manox 
the Musician — Francis Dereham — Discovery and Flight — 
Her Changed Demeanor — She Pleases the King — Her Married 
Life — Her First Peril— Cranmer Plots her Ruin — She Confesses 
— Her Death — Public Opinion, 413 



KATHARINE PARR. 
CHAPTER IX. 

Her First Husbands — Her Connection with the Court — Her 
Marriage — Her Danger — Henry's Death — Her Fourth Mar- 
riage and Death, . »-.... 435 



MEMOIR OF THE LIFE, 

POLITICAL, PRIVATE, AND DOMESTIC, 

OF 

KING HENRY VIII. 



TWENTIETH NORMAN KING OF ENGLAND; SECOND OF THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. 

* BOEN, JUNE 2S, 1491. CAME TO THE CROWN, APKIL 22, 1509. DIED, JANUARY 

28, 1547. AGE, 55 YEARS, 7 MO. REIGN, 37 YEAES, 9 MO., 6 DAYS. 



Ceterum, peractis tristitias imitamentis, curiam ingressus, et de auctoritate pa- 
trum, et consensu militum profatus, consilia sibi et exempla capessendi egregie im- 
perii memoravit ; nee juventam armis civilibns aut domesticia discordiis imbutam, 
nulla odia, nullas injurias, nee cupidinem ultionis adferre. 

Tacitus, Annates, Lib. xiii. cap. 4. 

Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. ' Juvenal, Satira, ii. S3. 

How oft the sight of means, to do ill deeds, 

Makes deeds ill done. Shakspeare, K. John, Act iv., So. 2. 



EETEOSPE CTIYE. 

Before entering directly into any consideration of the ex- 
traordinary career, and no less extraordinary character of this 
monarch, it will be necessary to take a brief retrospect of the 
affairs of England, at the period of his father's usurpation of 
the crown, and the consequent establishment of the Cambrian 
house of Tudor, on the British throne ; and to give some 
passing attention to the administration of the country, during 
the long reign of that able, but unprincipled, avaricious, and 
cold-hearted monarch. 

* Lord Herbert of Cherbury, p. 4 



14 GENERAL EFFECT OF THE WAR OF THE ROSES. 

To almost every reader, it is, of course, familiarly known, 
that, for nearly a century, including the whole period from the 
first dissensions of Richard II., the imbecile son of the famous 
Black Prince, with the able and ambitious Henry of Boling- 
broke, duke of Lancaster, in 1398, to the accession of Henry, 
earl of Richmond, in 1485, with the exception of the brief but 
glorious reign of Henry V., England was held in a constant 
turmoil of intestine divisions, civil wars, and bloody and barba- 
rous battles, between the rival houses of York and Lancaster, 
under their respective cognizances of the White and Red 
Roses. 

These cruel and disastrous wars, during which such was the 
desperate animosity of the partisans of the two factions that 
quarter was rarely either asked or given, especially among the 
nobles, even to princes of the blood-royal, had drained England 
of its purest and most ancient blood. Nor did the savage 
slaughters cease with the heat and fury of the strife ; the scaf- 
fold resounded with the almost incessant din of the headsman's 
ax ; and the assassin's knife cut off, in the secrecy of the prison- 
house, many a victim whom policy forbade to lead to open 
execution. In the short space of thirty years, in the two reigns 
of Henry VI. and his successor, the fourth Edward, no less 
than twelve pitched* battles were fought on English soil ; no 
less than eighty princes of the blood had perished ; and, so 
nearly was the ancient aristocracy reduced to absolute annihi- 
lation, that an ingenious, though somewhat exaggerated, writer f 
of the present day avows that, after the second battle of Bar- 
net, a Norman baron of the pure blood was a rarer animal 
than a wolf, on English soil ; and there is no doubt, though this 

*Hume, Hist. Eng. ii. 433. 

tSir Edward Buhver Lytton, Last of the Barons. 



WAR TO THE CASTLE. 15 

must be regarded as a forced form of speech, that destruction 
had dealt unsparingly with this class, and that the great depres- 
sion of this order tended much to facilitate the aggressions of 
the next succeeding kings, on the liberties of the English na- 
tion. For, in all ages of English history, it is remarkable 
that all successful resistance to monarchical encroachments, and 
all considerable extensions of popular privileges, have been 
maintained by, or have originated with the nobles, and not with 
the people. 

It is true, that these pitiless and sanguinary wars had one 
redeeming feature, that they were essentially wars against the 
castle, not against the cottage ; and that, so soon as the obsti- 
nate conflict was at an end, and the after-carnage done, no ven- 
geance hunted the retainer to his grange, or the peasant to his 
cot ; though it might pursue the baron to his last hiding-place 
and even tear him from sanctuary to the block, and that, saving 
the slaughter of the actual battle and of the immediate pursuit, 
little scathe befel the commonalty of the nation. 

A shrewd and experienced contemporaneous statesman,* the 
minister of Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, a man intimately 
acquainted with the condition of the principal states of continen- 
tal Europe, France, Switzerland, and the Flemish and Holland- 
ish Netherlands, having visited England, about this period, and, 
that, too, before sufficient time had elapsed to heal the wounds 
of civil war, has deliberately put it on record, that, of all the 
countries of which he had any knowledge, England was the best 
governed, with the greatest security to person and property; and 
that it was inconceivable to him, how a war, which by its char- 
acter of atrocious desperation, had attracted the eyes of all Eu- 

* Philip dc Comines, ambassador from Charles the Bold of Burgundy to Edward I Y 



16 GENERAL WISH FOR REPOSE. 

rope, should have rolled over the land, like a passing thunder- 
storm, leaving so few traces of havoc and ruin. He saw, he 
says, no devastated fields, no villages given up to conflagration, 
no towns destroyed by the ravages of a licentious soldiery ; 
but a country flourishing with a rich and thrifty agriculture, 
hamlets full of an industrious and happy population, towns 
teeming with the wealth of manufactures, and marts of com- 
merce, white with the sails, and crowded with the keels, of 
countless argosies. 

And a late brilliant and picturesque historian'" of England 
has well stated, that, during all the fiercest phases of the war 
of the Roses, within a week of the battles of Bramham-moor, 
or Towton, or Bosworth-field, the esquire was flying his hawks 
over the ground, or the plowman furrowing the lea, as if no- 
thing extraordinary had occurred in the neighborhood. 

Still, notwithstanding this merciful exemption from the chief 
horrors of civil war, which the. middle classes and peasantry 
of England appear to have enjoyed during this period, so dis- 
astrous to the nobles, the country was becoming aweary of the 
endless agitation of claims, in which they had little direct in- 
terest ; of the interminable conflicts of armed bands, in all 
quarters of the realm ; of the lavish outpouring of blood — 
always a thing uncongenial to the spirit of the English 
people — and, above all, of the insecurity to property and 
life, which is inseparable, in greater or less degree, from the 
state of war ; and the interruption to agricultural and commer- 
cial progress, which must follow civil dissensions, even in their 
most mitigated form. 

The wars of the Roses were especially wars of faction. No 
public principle, no popular interest was at stake. There was 

* Macaulay, Hist, of England. 



THE RIVAL FACTIONS. 17 

no issue between king and nobles, king and commons, or no- 
bility and people. No question of prerogative, privilege, or 
liberty. The matter was resolved, at once, into a contest for 
precedence between the two branches, York and Lancaster, of 
the great royal house of Plantagenet, and their kinsmen, ad- 
herents and fautors, which should inherit the crown of Ed- 
ward III., since whose time the title had been, more or less, in 
dispute. 

Each of these great branches, almost in itself a house, had 
such power, in land, in intimate connection with the great ba- 
rons of the realm, many of them scarcely second, in wealth, 
influence, and the ability to raise armies, to the crown itself, 
and almost all of them connected by blood with one or other 
of the claimants, that, in the first instance, they enlisted be- 
tween them, in support of their hostile claims, nearly the whole 
of the feudal aristocracy, and, through them, nearly the whole 
of the rural population, also, of the kingdom. For many 
years, the interested passions "of the rival nobles ; the deadly 
and vindictive fends arising from the merciless slaughter, on 
the field or scaffold, of these aristocratical partisans ; and their 
great influence over their vassals and tenantry, which classes 
included almost the whole agricultural populace, kept the war 
alive, and sustained it with unabated vigor ; until, when, in 
1485, the Lancastrian pretender, Henry, earl of Richmond, 
long an exile in Brittany, having defeated and slain Richard 
III., at Bosworth-field, in Leicestershire, the house of York 
was silenced, at least, if not utterly subdued, by the absence 
of any male heir, who should support its claims to the throne. 
By this time, the nobles, utterly enfeebled by their long and 
vast exertions, decimated by war and executions, and impov- 
erished by confiscations — and the agricultural class, weary 
2 



18 FAILURE OF TITLE IN HENRY VII. 

of fruitless slaughter in a cause which had no possible interest 
for them — were both unable and indisposed to protract this 
internecine strife to utterance ; and, at this crisis, the traders 
of the towns, the "burgesses" and "commonalty," recently 
erected into " corporations,"* who are always the class most 
averse to war, as desiring quiet and security, above all things, 
by means of which to acquire, enjoy, and transmit commercial 
wealth ; and who had never cared much for the questions at 
issue in this protracted and bootless struggle, now came for 
ward, and, by their weight, carried the decision in favor of rest, 
tranquillity, and peace, at all risk of consequences. And this 
is generally found to be the necessary conclusion of all ques- 
tions, even where vital interests, great principles!, and the true 
liberties of the people are involved ; if, being once fairly left to 
the arbitrament of the sword, they cannot be resolved by a 
speedy and decisive victory, final on one side or other, but de- 
generate into a long and exhausting struggle, in the course of 
which, probably, the first causes are forgotten. Much more, 
where nothing is at stake but a barren claim of succession,, 
about which, in truth, the people have little reason to feel 
concern. 

Thus, on the defeat and death of Richard, no opposition of 
any kind was made to the accession, to the throne of the Plan- 
tagenets, of Henry, earl of Richmond, though he had no real 
claim to be considered the heir to the house of Lancaster ; 
which, in its turn, had no real claim to the throne of England, 
by the laws of primogeniture, or legitimate hereditary descent. 
To many persons, doubtless, this will appear strange ; for so 
large a majority of English and American general readers de- 
rive their most firmly fixed and clearest ideas, in regard to 

* By the 18th of Henry VI. De Lolme, ii. 149. 



SONS OF EDWARD ITT. 



19 



English history from the historical plays of Shakspere — who, 
writing in the reign and under the special patronage of Eliza- 
beth, herself a Tudor, and grand daughter of this very usurper, 
Henry VII., distorted all facts, and carried all sympathies to 
the side of the house of Lancaster — that it is usually regarded 
as the true line ; and that of York, as a family of intrusive, 
lawless, and bloodthirsty usurpers. 

The case, however, is brief, easy, and conclusive ; where- 
fore, without farther demur, I shall submit it at once, to my 
readers, as curious in itself, and as having important bearing 
on after issues of history. 

On the murder, by Piers Exton, in Pontefract castle, of the 
weak and hapless Richard II., sole heir of Edward, the Black 
Prince, eldest son of Edward III., the crown of course de- 
scended to the issue of the collateral branches, being the broth- 
ers of the Black Prince, and sons of Edward III., in regular line 
of descent. 

The eldest of these princes, Lionel, duke of Clarence, third 
son of Edward, had left, by his wife Elizabeth de Burgh, 
one daughter, Philippa ; who married Edmund Mortimer, earl 
of March, in 1381, and bore him Roger, earl of March. This 
Roger married Eleonora of Kent, and left one daughter, Anne, 
countess of March. 

The second prince, John of Ghent, fourth son of Edward 
— William of Hatfield, the second son, having died an infant — 
married, as his first wife, Blanch, daughter of Henry, duke 
\of Lancaster, and in her right succeeded to that title. By 
Blanch, he had Henry of Bolingbroke, earl of Derby and 
duke of Hereford. John of Ghent subsequently married 
Blanch, or, as she is sometimes called, Constance, of Castille ; 
and, thirdly, Katharine of Swineford, by whom he had ante- 



20 FIRST RUPTURE OF THE HOUSES. 

connubial issue, John, earl of Somerset, Henry, cardinal Beau, 
fort, Thomas, duke of Exeter, and Joan, who married Ralph 
Nevil, and was grandmother to Richard, earl of Warwick, the 
king maker. 

The third, surviving prince, Edmund of Langley, duke of 
York, fifth son of Edward, married Isabel of Castille, and had 
by her, Richard, earl of Cambridge, who married his cousin 
Anne, countess of March, heiress to Lionel of Clarence, 
third son of Edward. Richard, earl of Cambridge, had, by 
Anne March, Richard, duke of York, who, by Cicely, daugh- 
ter of Rudolph, earl of' Westmoreland, had Henry, who died 
young ; Edward, afterward King Edward IV. ; George, duke 
of Clarence ; Richard of Gloucester, afterward King Richard 
III. ; and Elizabeth. 

At the murder of Richard II., therefore, Richard, duke of 
York, as heir, through his mother, Anne of March, to Lionel, 
third son of Edward III., was the right and legitimate suc- 
cessor to the throne, in preference to Henry of Bolingbroke, 
who was only heir to the fourth son. 

This was the first division of the kindred houses, and the 
first usurpation of the crown by the younger line of Lancaster. 
Eor, Henry of Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, having invaded 
England in arms, being in exile, overturned the government, im 
prisoned the reigning monarch, and procured himself to be de- 
clared king, by the lords and commons assembled in parlia- 
ment, under the name of Richard II, then a prisoner of state, 
and shortly afterward assassinated at Pontefract. 

The claim of Henry IV., for under this title he reigned ably, 
but illegally and tyrannically, during fourteen years, was con- 
stantly disputed, and his reign disturbed by frequent rebellions 
and armed risings, the most formidable of which was the union 



FAILURE OF THE CLAIM OF LANCASTER. 21 

of Henry Hotspur of Percy, the earl of Douglas, and Owen 
Glendower, of Wales, terminated in favor of Henry, by the 
bloody battle of Shrewsbury ; but he maintained his title, and 
left it regularly to his son, Henry V., by his wife, Mary of 
Bohun, daughter of the earl of Hereford. 

He, after an able, brilliant, and moderate reign, according 
to the ideas of those times, during which he conquered and 
held two-thirds of France, left the crown undisputed to his in- 
fant son by Katharine, daughter of Charles VI. of France, 
Henry of Windsor, sixth king of England, of that name, since 
the conquest. 

His long minority, the reverses in France, which succeeded 
to the wise and energetic regency of Bedford, and resulted in 
the loss of all the French provinces of England, joined to his 
imbecility of character, irreparable even by the dauntless cour- 
age and strong intellect of his man-minded wife, Margaret of 
Anjou, gave an occasion, to the wrongfully dispossessed house 
of York, to throw once more for the crown ; and they were 
not slow to profit by it. 

The intrusive house of Lancaster had now been kings de 
facto, for a space of fifty-six years, during the last forty of 
which their claim had been scarcely disputed ; and had com- 
menced a dynasty which had already extended to the third 
prince regnant, and might have been firmly established, had the 
temper of Henry VI. and his rival been different, or had they 
changed positions. 

By right of blood, the house of Lancaster had no claim, as 
we have above seen, whatever ; although Henry of Boling- 
broke, evidently aware of the illegality of his title, as by par- 
liamentary election, attempted in his challenge to revive an ab- 
surd and antiquated story, to the effect that Edmund, earl of 



22 TRUE TITLE OF EDWARD IV. 

Lancaster, son of Henry III., was really the elder brother of 
Edward I., and that, through him, he was the rightful heir to 
the throne. This attempt, however, was so manifestly futile, 
and the story on which it was founded so obviously false, that 
no stress has been laid on it, and it is scarcely named in 
history. 

The pretended deposition of Richard II. and proclamation of 
Henry IV., was the work of an assemblage, utterly unworthy to 
be styled a parliament, consisting either of open partisans of Bol- 
ingbroke, or of men under intimidation from actual force — which 
was brought into play against the Bishop of Carlisle, who alone 
had intrepidity to except to their lawless proceedings — and con- 
voked by no legal authority ; since, although the name of the 
captive king was used for form's sake, the meeting was really 
called by Henry, duke of Lancaster, who had no more power 
to call it than any other peer of the realm ; and this parlia- 
ment, if it should be so called, sat but one day, during which 
period it deposed one king, and placed another on the throne, 
having been convened solely for that purpose. 

The rival faction of York, however, now took up arms ; and, 
after much severe fighting, many atrocious cruelties, perpetra- 
ted on both sides, such as the mutilation of the corpse of Rich- 
ard, duke of York, the murder of his son Rutland, by Clifford, 
and the wholesale executions of the leaders and nobles taken 
in arms on either side, succeeded in establishing their chief, in 
the person of Edward IV., son of Richard, duke of York, and 
grandson of Anne March, whose superior claim to the throne, 
I have shown above, in possession of the government. 

This bold and politic prince, who possessed in a high degree 
the affections of the Londoners, and of the burgher class, in 
general, through the kingdom, whose favor he had conciliated 



USURPATION OF GLOUCESTER. 28 

by his concessions, wise domestic regulations, and foreign ne- 
gotiations in favor of trade, finally defeated and crushed the 
Lancastrian party, at the second battle of Barnet, where fell 
Warwick, the king maker, his brother, the earl of Montacute, 
and the flower of the Norman aristocracy ; which was thence- 
forth so much reduced, that years elapsed before it could again 
make effectual head against the encroachments, whether of the 
kings or the commons. 

At his death, which found him in undisputed possession of 
his crown, he left two sons, Edward V., unmarried, and Rich- 
ard, duke of York, married to Anne of Norfolk ; Elizabeth, 
subsequently wife of Henry VII. ; and four other daughters, 
Cicely, Bridget, Anne, and Katharine, of whom no more is 
heard in history, though they formed alliances with English 
noblemen of rank. 

No sooner was Edward IV. in the grave, than his wily, in- 
scrutable, and wholly unscrupulous brother, Gloucester, whom 
he had himself appointed regent, quarrelled with Dorset, Ri- 
vers, Gray, Hastings, and Stanley, the kinsmen, friends and ad- 
visers of the queen-dowager, brought three of them to the 
block without form of law, made himself master of the persons 
of the princes, his nephews, whom he committed to the tower, 
and procured himself to be nominated protector, by the coun- 
cil, without awaiting the sanction of parliament. After this, 
impudently alleging that his own mother had been false to his 
father's bed, that his elder brothers, Edward IV. and George, 
duke of Clarence, were illegitimate, with their issue, and that 
he was himself, therefore, the only true heir, he seized the 
crown, with no shadow of plea or excuse, no popular con- 
sent, no authority of parliament, no sanction of any kind what- 
soever. 



34 LAMBERT SIMNEL AND PERKIN WARBECK. 

The absurd allegations, which he put forth to justify his seiz- 
ure of the royal office, he never attempted to support by any 
proof, nor were they ever received by the people at large, or 
by any considerable party in the state. He called no parlia- 
ment for five years ; nor did he dare, until all his enemies 
were either dead, in exile, or prostrate at his feet, to ask the 
sanction of the houses, intimidated, helpless, and in his power, 
to his usurpation ; though, when asked, they had no choice but 
to concede it. 

What passed in the interim, is less evident, and is even opeu 
to some speculation, if not doubt. The opinion generally re- 
ceived, is that the young princes, Edward and Eichard, were 
smothered in the tower, by three ruffians, Slater, Forrest, and 
Dighton, under the orders of Tyrrel, appointed to be consta- 
ble of the tower, in lieu of Sir Robert Brackenbury, for that 
one night, and for that very purpose. It is added, that their 
bodies were buried very deep, at the foot of the stairs, under 
a heap of stones ; and that, in the reign of Charles II., the 
bones of two persons, corresponding to the size which might 
be expected from the reputed age of the princes, were found 
in that spot, and suitably interred by order of the then 
king. 

On the contrary, it is certain that Henry VII., after his 
usurpation and marriage with Elizabeth, in default of heirs 
male, the inheritrix of the honors of the house of York, hav- 
ing every possible inducement to establish the facts of the de- 
cease of these princes, since their existence would have set 
aside his claim to succeed, failed, though he caused urgent 
search to be made in that very place, to discover any relics ; 
nor, arbitrary and cold-booded as he was, and sanctioned in all 
his aggressions on liberty and law by a timorous and subservi- 



HENRY OF RICHMOND NOT HEIR OF LANCASTER. 25 

ent parliament, did he ever dare to bring to trial, or punish, 
any one of the alleged murderers. 

There is also some reason to suspect, that, al though the first 
pretender, Lambert Simnel, was clearly an impostor, the second, 
Perkin Warbeck, as he was termed, might have been Richard, 
the duke of York, escaped, as he averred, from the tower. 

There are undoubtedly circumstances connected with his re- 
cognition by many persons, who had sufficient means to be ac- 
quainted with the appearance of Richard, his own mother among 
the rest, which seem to justify such a surmise ; but, on the other 
hand, there is as much to be adduced on the opposite side of 
the question ; and it is more probable he was a bastard of 
Edward IV. 

The strongest reason for believing that they were actually 
dealt upon, at the time, if not in the place or manner stated, is 
this — that all Richard's actions point to his own conviction of 
their death, or, at least, non-existence. He, at first, married 
Anne, the widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI. ; 
and, after her death, not without suspicion of foul play, was on 
the point of marry ing Elizabeth, his own niece, and daughter of 
his brother, Edward IV., from which he was only prevented 
by the occurrences, which led to another usurpation, less fla- 
grant and impudent only than his own. 

His object in desiring to contract the latter incestuous al- 
liance, was to establish himself on the throne, by a union with 
the eldest surviving heir of Edward III, ; and to make Elizabeth 
such an heiress, the princes must have been by him presumed 
dead, or otherwise the marriage was useless and absurd, as 
well as odious and illegal. 

But now came the last usurpation, which placed on the 
throne of England not the house of Lancaster, but that of 



26 « THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. 

Tudor ; and which, with the subsequent marriage of the 
usurper, constituted his son, Henry VIII., the subject of my 
present memoir, legitimate and very king of Enlgand. 

I have shown above, on pages nineteen and twenty, that the 
house of Lancaster had no valid title to the throne, as against 
the house of York, the former being descended from the fourth, 
the latter from the second son of King Edward III. I shall 
now proceed to show that Henry of Richmond had no title 
to be held heir, even to the secondary house of Lancaster. 

After the death of Henry VL and his son Edward, prince 
of Wales, the legitimate issue of John of Ghent, by Blanch 
of Lancaster, was extinct. By Blanch, or Constance, of Cas- 
tille, he had Katharine, who married King Henry III. of Castille, 
and appears no farther in English history. By Katharine of 
Swineford, while his mistress, he had illegitimate issue, among 
others, John Beaufort, earl of Somerset 

It is but right, here, to admit that Richard II. granted, with 
the "authority of parliament, a charter legitimating these bas- 
tards ; but it is clear that this was, on its face, an ex -post facto 
law ; and no ex post facto law, legitimating bastards, or bas- 
tardizing legitimate heirs, could stand for a moment, even as 
to the inheritance of private property, much less in the succes- 
sion to a crown. 

Yet, on this wretched assumption, rests his only shadow of 
pretense to the crown. 

After the death of King Henry V., the conqueror of France, 
his wife, Katharine of Valois, now the widowed mother of 
Henry VL, married, in second wedlock, Owen Tudor, a pri- 
vate gentleman of Wales. To him she bore Edmund Tudor, 
earl of Richmond, uterine brother to Henry VL, but of no 
earthly kin to the house of Lancaster. 



DEATH OF RICHARD III. 27 

This Edmund Tudor married Margaret, daughter of John, 
earl of Somerset and Kendal, and granddaughter of the bas- 
tard, John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, son of John of Ghent 
and Katharine of Swineford. 

Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort had issue, in the per- 
son of Henry, earl of Richmond, afterward Henry VJI. of En- 
gland, and father of my hero. 

His pedigree was in every way vitiated ; on his father's 
side he was of no kin to either royal house ; on his mother's, 
his descent was null by the bar or baton of bastardy. 

The true heiress to the throne was, beyond question, Eliza- 
beth of York ; and, failing herself and her issue, then each one 
in succession of her sisters, Cicely, Bridget, Anne, and Katha- 
rine, and their issue ; and even, if the pedigree of Margaret 
Beaufort had been clear of stain, her son Henry could by no 
means have succeeded, during the lifetime of his mother. 

Notwithstanding this defect, or, to speak more correctly, this 
total absence of right, in his title, no sooner did Richmond land at 
Milford Haven, in his native Wales, than the leaders of the old 
Lancastrian party flocked to his standard in arms. The earl 
of Oxford, Sir Gilbert Talbot, Sir Walter Savage, and Jasper 
Tudor, earl of Pembroke, joined him at once and openly. Sir 
Rice ap Thomas deserted to him, with Richard's new Welsh 
levies, and Lord Stanley, who was in command of a large force, 
nominally in arms for York, awaited only an occasion for be- 
traying him. 

They met at Bosworth-field, where, by Stanley's defection 
at the very crisis of the day, the victory was decided for 
Henry. Richard died fighting with courage worthy of a better 
cause ; he killed Sir Henry Brandon, Henry's standard-bearer, 
unhorsed Sir John Cheney with his own hand, and was on the 



28 henry's alleged titles. 

point of bringing Richmond to the arbitrament of a personal 
conflict, when he would probably have determined the for- 
tunes of the day by his rival's death. But, at this moment, 
Stanley's men treacherously falling on his flank and rear, he 
was overwhelmed by numbers, and killed by an unknown 
hand. 

The victory of Richmond was disgraced by the dishonora- 
ble treatment of Richard's corpse, which was paraded, naked 
and covered with blood, thrown carelessly across a pack-horse, 
through the streets of Leicester ; and by the barbarous execu- 
tions of the adherents of the house of York, which can be palli- 
ated by no principle of justice or even of vengeance ; since it 
can never be held a crime in the subject of any government, 
de facto, to defend that government by force of arms against 
a foreign invader. 

The battle being won, Henry of Richmond was hailed, it 
would seem, "by a natural and unpremeditated movement"* 
of the soldiers, with acclamations of " Long live King Henry 
VII. ! " and Sir William Stanley crowned him, on the field.f 
with a circlet %f precious stones, which had been worn, as 
was then not unusual, by Richard, on his basnet, and was ta- 
ken, as spolia opima, from his corpse. 

The acclamatory election by the soldiery, and the extern 
pore coronation by a bloody-handed captain, fresh from a base 
treason, had been all well enough for a Roman imperator, or 
a wild champion of the Goths, but was scarcely valid, as a title 

* Hume, Hist. Eng, ili, 1. 

+ As at the battle of Beauge, in France, where the Duke of Clarence wore a jew» 
eled crown on his casque. 

" When Swinton laid the lance in rest, 
Which tamed, of yore, the sparkling crest 
Of Clarence's Plantaganet"^*Scorr. 



henry's alleged titles. 29 

to the crown of already constitutional England. Some other 
plea had to be sought, therefore, for this high-handed usurpa- 
tion, and although no opposition was offered to the usurper, it 
was long ere he could discover one which seemed, even to 
himself, satisfactory or sufficient. 

There were, it seems, three or four pleas* on which Henry 
might have attempted to rest a claim. First, on the actual 
right of the house of Lancaster ; but this claim, originating as 
it did, in Henry IV., who had never clearly defined his pre- 
tensions, while at the same time, he had avoided to rest his 
title on popular election, was not sufficiently tenable; the 
rather that Henry was not the true heir of Lancaster, the Som- 
erset line having been totally ignored in all settlements of the 
crown, even by their own party, until the failure of the legiti- 
mate succession. 

Secondly, he might have rested on the recognition of the 
house of'Lancaster as the true house, by several parliaments ; 
but such acts of recognition were so clearly of a partisan 
character, that no reliance could be placed on them ; the rather 
that they had been regularly annulled by other 1 parliaments, 
whenever the Yorkists came into temporary power ; and, 
again, the flaws in his own Lancastrian descent militated against 
this title. 

Thirdly, he might have urged his title on the plea of right 
by conquest ; but against this, first, stood the fact, that his vic- 
torious army consisted mainly of Englishmen, who could not 
be said to have conquered the crown of England ; and, second, 
the extreme odiousness of the plea of right by conquest, in- 
sulting all the patriotic feelings of the entire nation ; a plea which 

* Hume, in Henry VII., vol. iii. p. 27, &c 



30 HENRY KING BY POSSESSION. 

even William of Normandy, at the head of his victorious for 
eign army, dared not to assert, until he was fully established 
on the throne, and the realm pacified. 

Fourthly, he might have claimed the crown fairly, in right 
of Elizabeth of York, had he married her instantly, as he had 
pledged himself to do. But he had no idea of holding the 
crown, only under the limited rights of king consort, and was 
resolved to be himself king of England. 

To this end, when he entered London, amid the acclama- 
tions and rejoicings of the fickle populace, weary of war and 
bloodshed, anxious above all things for repose, and naturally 
attracted by the charm which invests a young and victorious 
prince, he summoned a parliament, and procured his recogni- 
tion as " king in possession," and an entail of the crown, couched 
in words which equally avoided the assertion of a previous he- 
reditary right, and the appearance of a new ordinance, no men- 
tion being made in it of the princess, Elizabeth of York, or 
any of her family. 

"The parliament* voted simply, 'that the inheritance of 
the crown should rest, remain, and abide in the king;' but 
whether as rightful heir, or only as present possessor, was not 
determined.'" 

In like manner, though the crown was settled on the heirs 
of the body of the king, no attempt was made, in the case of 
their failure, to exclude the house of York, or to give prece- 
dence to that of Lancaster; the king politicly preferring to 
leave that question ambiguous. 

Henry of Richu id was crowned King Henry VII., by 
Cardinal Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury ; he shortly after- 
ward married Elizabeth, the heiress of York ; and, in the fol- 

*Humo, in Henry VII., vol. iii. p. J). 



CRUEL ACTS OF ATTAINDER. 31 

lowing year, as if, after all his precautions, -he was still unsat- 
isfied with the validity of his own title, he obtained from Pope 
Innocent VIII. a bull confirmatory of it. In this document, all 
his titles, by succession, marriage, parliamentary choice, and 
conquest, are enumerated ; and the thunders of the church are 
launched " against every one* who should seek to disturb him- 
self in the present possession, or the heirs of his body in the 
future succession, of the crown." 

His first regal act, by consent of parliament, was the rever- 
sal of all the attainders passed by preceding parliaments against 
the adherents of the house of Lancaster ; but this deed of grace 
and justice he sullied by procuring the passage of acts of at- 
tainder against the late king himself, against the Duke of Nor- 
folk, the Earl of Surrey, the Lords Lovel, Zouch, and Ferrars 
of Chartley, and some thirty knights and gentlemen, who had 
fought on the side of the late king at Bosworth — an act equally 
unjust, inexpedient, and injurious to the popularity with which 
Henry began his reign. 

It is not a little remarkable, that in this very king's reign, 
and by his complaisant and servile parliament, a statute was 
passed — 2 Henry VII. c. 1 — clearly recognizing the wicked- 
ness and injustice of such retributory penalties ;•(• "by which 
a shield was acquired against the violence and vengeance of fac- 
tions, and the civil duty of allegiance was placed on a just foun- 
dation, by destroying the distinction between governments 'e?e 
jure'' and 'de facto? 

" It enacts that no person, who in arms 01 otherwise assists 
the king, for the time being, should after fKrd be convicted or 

* Hume, in Henry VII., vol. iii. p. 9. 

t Stephens on the English Constitution, vol. 1, chap, vi, p. 154-5. This statute was 
acted on by William and Mary, in 16SS. 



32 HIS CONDUCT AND ITS EFFECTS. 

attainted thereof, as of an offense, by course of law, or by act 
of parliament, and all process and acts of parliament to the 
contrary should be void." 

In order to avoid protracting this preliminary notice, 
which will be found absolutely necessary for the comprehen- 
sion of the occurrences of the reign of Henry VIII., and of the 
causes which enabled him to ride, as it were, rough-shod over 
all the prejudices and predilections, religious and political, all 
the liberties and most of the laws, of a people, free and ordi- 
narily tenacious of its rights, privileges, and customs — I shall 
proceed to quote a few passages from Stephens' History of the 
British Constitution, which, while admirably portraying the 
character of Henry VII., the nature of his aggressions, and the 
means by which he effected them, show also conclusively the 
effects of these on the temper of the English nation, and 
preclude the necessity of entering into minute historical par 
ticulars. 

"Henry VII.," says he,* " a creature of the people, had been 
raised to the throne, in order to cut up the roots of faction, to 
restore public tranquillity, and to establish a legal government 
on the ruins of tyranny. 

" He did the very reverse of this ; his reign and that of his 
son have been two of the severest under which our country 
hath groaned ; and yet in these very reigns, the foundations of 
liberty were laid much broader and stronger than ever. 

"The king, under the pretext of establishing liberty, ob- 
tained an ascendency over the deliberations of the commons, 
and as practical proofs of the sincerity of his 'liberal profes- 
sions' to his 'liberal friends,' procured the powers of th Star- 

* Stephens, Brit Const., vol. vi., p. 151, et seq. 



EXTORTIONS OF HENRY VII. S3 

chamber, and causelessly procured numerous bills of attainder, 
in order to gratify his hateful prejudices. 

"The increased powers of the estates of parliament are 
evinced by their vesting the crown in Henry VII., without al- 
leging any title in him to that crown, by inheritance, election, 
or otherwise. 

" This had the effect of exalting the authority of the com- 
mons, and Henry availed himself of such authority, by exer- 
cising all his tyrannical acts through their instrumentality ; in 
fact, both united in one common object, namely to destroy the 
influence of the peers. 

" The facilities, which had been given to the lords to alienate 
their lands, united with the enlargement of commerce and nav- 
igation, had increased the property of the commons, and con- 
sequently their power in the state ; but, as the nobility de- 
creased, the tyranny of the king and commons increased, and 
to a much more dangerous extent than it had ever done under 
the feudal laws. ******** 

" In the house of lords the influence of the crown was al- 
ways predominant, the number of temporal peers having, du- 
ring this reign, averaged about forty,* and at the commence- 
ment not so many ; the spiritual lords having been therefore 
always the majority of the house. 

" Henry VII. proceeded, as he had been suffered to set out, 
and established by degrees, and those not slow, a power almost 
absolute. By making an ill use of this power, the king was 

*The number of barons summoned to parliament in the reign (if Edward I., and 
in the first years of Edward II., — in whose Close Boll, 15 Ed. II., the earls and ba- 
rons are first called " Peers of the land " — averaged about eighty. 

The house of lords in the first parliament of Richard II., consisted of the archbish- 
ops, bishops, twenty-two abbots, two priors, one duke, thirteen earls, forty-seven ba- 
rons, twelve judges and privy counsellors. — Dugdalis Summons, 299. 

3 



34 EXTORTIONS OF HENRY VII. 

the real author of all the disorders in the state, and of all the 
attempts against his government ; and yet, the better to pre- 
vent such disorders and to resist such attempts, further powers 
were entrusted to him. 

" Because he had governed ill, it was put in his power to 
govern worse ; and liberty was undermined for fear it should 
be overthrown. It hath fared sometimes with monarchy as it 
hath with the church of Borne ; both have acquired greater 
wealth and power by the abuse of what they had; and man- 
kind have been egregiously the bubbles of both." 

After proceeding to point out the adoption by this monarch, 
Henry VII., of the " unfair system of benevolences or contri- 
butions," which gifts, though apparently voluntary, were extor- 
tions ; his unceasing and oppressive efforts to amass treasure, 
by every alteration of the laws, by prosecutions upon old and 
forgotten penal statutes, by perversion of the feudal rights, by 
the imposition of excessive fines on king's wards, by the pros- 
titution of justice and commutation of punishments for a price, 
and by the open sale of every office in his court, and of the 
highest dignities in the church, — Stephens concludes by ob- 
serving, with his usual shrewdness and pith — " These extor- 
tions and corruptions contributed to the unpopularity of Hen- 
ry, and answered the end of invigorating his power ; they were 
tolerated by the commons, because the fines and forfeitures im- 
poverished and intimidated the nobility." 

The same writer says, quoting from Hume, " It bas, how 
ever, been justly observed, that the measures of parliament, 
during this age, furnish us with examples of a strange contrast 
of freedom and servility. They scruple to grant, and some- 
times refuse, to the king the smallest supplies, the most ne- 
cessary for the support of the government, even the most mt> 



HIS CHARACTER. 85 

oessary for the maintenance of wars, for which the nation, as 
well as the parliament itself, expressed great fondness ; hut 
they never scruple to concur in the most flagrant act of injus- 
tice or tyranny which falls on any individual, however distin- 
guised by birth or merit. 

" These maxims, so ungenerous, so opposite to all principles 
of good government, so contrary to the practice of present' 
parliaments, are very remarkable in all the transactions of the 
English history for more than a century after the period in 
which we are now engaged."* 

Finally, he closes his relation of the enactments, laws, inno- 
vations, and policy of the reign of this cold-blooded and un- 
principled man and king, by these striking words • 

" The only objects of Henry VII. were, per fas aut nefas, to 
maintain the possession of the throne, depress the nobility, and 
exalt the prerogative ; these he pursued without being blinded 
by passion, relaxed by indolence, or misled by vanity." 

And this brings me to the period when the first prince of 
the house of Tudor, who had ascended the throne, as it were, 
by acclamation and among the loud joy of the people, de- 
parted from it and life together, amid their far mor..,* general 
and, if not louder, infinitely sincerer rejoicings v . He was a 
selfish, cold-blooded, far-sighted, clear-headed, avaricious, and 
unfeeling man — a politic, wise, energetic, able, sleepless, grasp- 
ing, and oppressive king. 

Publicly and privately, with the exception of his own son 
and successor, he was the most reckless and cruellest, with the 
exception of James, the first English king of the Scottish house 
of Stuart, the basest-minded, and altogether, from his con- 

* Richard IIL, 1483, 1485. 



36 DEPRESSION OF THE NOBLES. 

summate craft and total lack of passion, the most dangerous 
tyrant, who ever sat upon the throne of England. 

It may be added here, not inappropriately, that the syste- 
matic depression of the nobles and of the aristocratic branch 
of the legislature, by the seventh and eighth Henrys, by the 
arbitrary and self-willed, but lion-hearted, Elizabeth, and by 
that odions, contemptible, and beastly pedant, sot, catamite, 
and coward, James I., was severely avenged on their posterity, 
in the persons of the two Charles Stuarts, when they found 
to their fate, that the peerage had lost its power to stand be- 
tween the crown and the aggressions of the people, as it had 
been previously robbed of that, to stand between the individ- 
ual and the tyranny of the crown. 






HENRY THE EIGHTH. 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM HIS ACCESSION, 1509, TO THE GENERAL PACIFICATION, 1518. 

On the 22d day of April, 1509, King Henry VII., who had 

^ascended the throne of England twenty -four years before, amid 
the acclamations of a whole people, almost unanimously hail- 
ing him as the man of a new era, and the founder of a new 
epoch, died in the midst of joy far more general, sincere and 
better founded than that which had greeted his accession. 

On that same 22d of April, 1509, his son, King Henry VIII. 
ascended the same puissant seat, among the same joy, the same 
acclamations, under far brighter auspices, far loftier promise, 
in his turn to die, after a reign of thirty-seven years, on the 
28th day of January, 1547, amid the undissembled rejoicings 
of the most loyal people in the world, alienated from the true 
affections, which they bore him, by tyranny, cruelty, crime, 
happily unexampled in Europe, unless we return to the days 
of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian. 

Eor the oppressions, bad as they were, of the seventh Hen- 
ry, there are palliations, if not excuses, to be found in the cir- 
cumstances, both antecedent and subsequent to his seizure of 
the throne. Even for his seizure of it there was some shadow 
of apology. 

England, at the period of his invasion, was groaning under 
the usurped rule 

"Of an tmtltl«d tyrant, bloody soepterad; " 



38 'ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. 

the true heiress to the crown was a weak girl, who, even if it 
had been possible for her to attain her rights, could by no 
conceivable chance have governed the turbulent spirits of the 
two rival factions, which, for well nigh a century, had torn the 
intestines of their native land ; and he himself, if not the le- 
gitimate heir, had in some degree been led to regard himself 
as such, and was, it must be admitted, the only living person 
who could be hoped to unite such a force under his banners 
as to rescue England, and when rescued, to give her peace, 
repose, and the blessings of a permanent and just government. 

That he did not, scarcely made a show even of doing, this 
latter is his crime and his disgrace ; but it must be remem- 
bered — 

That he ascended the throne under these difficulties — He 
ascended it, at the best, with a doubtful and disputed title ; 
with powerful, greedy, and clamorous partisans, to be concili- 
ated and preserved only by rewards, necessarily more or less 
illegal ; with active and formidable enemies to be suppressed ; 
with a flagrant feeling of wrongs to be avenged. 

Throughout his whole reign he felt his occupancy of his 
throne and the permanency of his race at least doubtful. To 
secure both he took all means, by overpowering enemies, 
quelling • the free spirit of the people, amassing treasures, 
whereby to weigh down opposition. That he should do so, 
was natural in itself; -that he did so, wrongfully, oppressively, 
illegally, and heartlessly, was his sin and his shame, and the 
consequence was not wanting. 

He died the wealthiest, probably the most powerful, assu- 
redly the most detested, prince in Europe. 

His son succeeded him, with the gayest and most glorious 
auguries that ever lighted a young heir to royalty. There 



HIS QUALITIES AND OCCASIONS. o9 

was not one cloud to cast a shadow upon the sunshine of his 
promise. 

His title was undisputed, his crown his by right, as in fact, and 
as by the universal consent of the people, over whom God in 
his wonderful wisdom permitted him to reign. He had no 
hatreds, public or domestic, to gratify, no injuries to avenge, 
no feuds to cherish, no onerous benefits to repay, no clamorous 
adherents to conciliate or satisfy. He was in the flower of 
youth, just entering his eighteenth year ; overflowing with 
health and animal spirits ; handsome, of royal port and manly 
stature of the largest mould ;* expert in all graceful and ath- 
letic exercises; blessed with an education,! most rare for 
princes or nobles in those days, and entitled to be held learned, 
even among men of uncommon learning. 

He possessed a bold, frank, open address, which ever wins 
favor from the people; he had a ready wit; was not without that 
sort of bluff and burly good humor arising, in truth, only from 
a sense of well-being and self-gratification, which so often 

• *Sir Henry Halford, who examined the remains of Henry VIII. in his coffin- 
when it was discovered, during the search made by George IV. for the remains of 
Charles I., broken open, probably, at the interment of that monarch -was as- 
tonished at the extraordinary size and power of his preserved frame, winch was 
well suited to his enormous arm-chair, said to be at Windsor. He resembled the 
colossal figure of his grandfather, Edward IV., who was six feet two inches in height, 
and possessed of tremendous strength.-i^ofe to Miss Strickland's Queens of En- 
gland, vol. ii. p. 235. 

tHis education was accurate, being destined (as a credible author affirms) to the 
archbishopric of Canterbury, during the life of his elder brother, Prince Arthur; 
that prudent king, his father, choosing this as the most cheap and glorious way for 
bestowing a younger son. Tor as he at once disburdened his revenues and the pub- 
lic from the charge incident to so great a person, so he left a passage open to ambi- 
tion- ever since Engenius, 4, had declared the place of a cardinal above all other in 
the church * * * * By these means, not only the more necessary parts of 
learning were infused into him, but even those of ornament; so that besides his 
being an able Latinist, philosopher, and divine, he was (what one might wonder at 
in a king) a curious musician ; as two entire masses, composed by him, and o ten 
sung in his chapel, did abundantly witness.-^™! Herbert of Cherbury, pp. 8-4. 



40 INCONSISTENCY OF HENRY S CAREER. 

passes in the great for goodness of heart ; and was abundantly 
libera], even to lavish profusion, which, of all qualities in 
princes, most challenges the admiration, and purchases the af- 
fection of the masses. 

In view of his occasions, his personal capacities, his acquired 
qualifications, the real grandeur of his position, which had no 
single draw-back, and his general popularity with all classes 
and estates of the realm, it may be safely said, that no mon- 
arch ever climbed the steps of state with such opportunities 
of real utility, greatness, and goodness, of living rich in a 
people's love, and dying with an immortal name, as Henry 
VIII. of England. 

" It is not easy," says Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in his exor- 
dium to the history of King Henry VIII., "to write that 
prince's history, of whom no one thing may be constantly af 
firmed. Changing of manners and condition alters that co- 
herence of parts which should give an uniform description ; 
nor is it probable that contradictories should agree to the 
same person. So that nothing can shake the credit of a narra- 
tion more, than if it grow unlike itself; when yet, it may 
be, not the author, but argument caused the variation. It is 
impossible to draw his picture well who hath several coun- 
tenances. 

" I shall labor with tins difficulty in King Henry VIII. ; not 
yet so much for the general observation among politics, that the 
government of princes rarely grows milder toward their latter 
end ; but that this king, in particular, being, about his decli- 
ning age, so different in many of his desires, as that he knew 
not well how either to command or obey them, interverted 
all, falling at the last into such violent courses, as in common 



GRADUAL DETERIORATION. 41 

opinion derogated not a little from those virtues which at first 
made him one of the most renowned princes of Christendom." 

There is not, however, so much to be admired at in the de- 
clension of Henry VIII. as it would seem to have appeared to 
his quaint and eccentric biographer ; for, according to the 
views in which I see his vicious and loathsome character, I can 
discover nothing beyond an original proclivity to evil, increas- 
ing gradually, through self-indulgence, through entire absence 
of all governance or restraint by himself or others, through 
almost absolute power of self-gratification, and through the 
basest adulation of all around him, until everything that there 
had existed in him of relatively good was merged in a slough 
of sensuality, selfishness, self-sufficiency, and disregard to all 
but his own pleasures ; and he became a mere slave to his 
vile lusts and unbridled passions. 

This is but the common course of daily human nature. 
The first sin, before the commission of which the novice 
shrinks and trembles, essayed, repeated, unresisted, followed 
by no sensible retribution, become habitual, is but the intro- 
ducer to another, to a thousand others, each uglier than the 
last, until the consequential train of that first trivial-seeming 
error has swollen into a burthen of millstone offences that 
might suffice to unsphere and sink the brightest star of honor. 
To me there are discoverable none of those varieties of counte- 
nance, of which the historian speaks, in the hideous picture of 
Henry's career of lust and cruelty. Only that gradual dark- 
ening of the first faint glimmer of light, if any light can be found 
in the beginning, until the whole is utter darkness. 

No one, as the Eoman satirist declared, having the Eoman 
Nero in his eye, can be entirely infamous from the first ; 
crime must be hatched out of sin, and brooded by indulgence. 



42 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

The soul must be hardened and annealed by successive and 
progressive heatings of the furnace before it can acquire that 
temper which can defy all impress of nature, virtue, or human- 
ity. It is only the superficial observer, who mistakes the ab- 
sence of active vice for the reality of actual virtue, that is as- 
tonished at the alteration, at the regular but rapid deteriora- 
tion of character in the career, whether of the English or the 
Roman Nero. 

But from theorizing on the principles involved, I will turn 
at once to the display of the facts of his career. 

He ascended the throne of England, as I have stated, in the 
eighteenth year of his age, at the commencement of a great 
epoch in the world's history, and in an era distinguished by 
more great names of greatest men contemporaneous, and great- 
est events crowding each one the other out of notice, than any 
that had occurred before, since the fall of the Roman empire, 
or has occurred since, until the end of the eighteenth and com- 
mencement of the nineteenth centuries. 

Less than forty years before his birth, in 1455, the first bi- 
ble had been printed at Mentz ; and books which, multiplied 
only by the slow and painful art of the copyist, were previously 
valued at almost their weight in gold, and were attainable 
only by the greatest and most wealthy, became so general that 
the truth could no longer be concealed from the masses, whether 
for good or for evil, nor darkness any more usurp the place of 
light. 

When he was but one year old, America was rediscovered 
by Christopher Columbus, who, as the phrase went in those 
days, gave a new world to Castille^and Leon ; and to the nig- 
gard and unkingly avarice of his father, Henry VII., alone, is it 
to be ascribed that those vast realms of tropical fertility and 



REFORMATION AND EXTINCTION OF CHIVALRY. 43 

auriferous wealth, now slowly but surely dropping from the 
hands of the degenerate Spanish race which first won them, 
had not fallen, on their first discovery, to that great and ener- 
getic Anglo-Norman tribe, which now seems destined one day 
to possess them. 

Ten years after he ascended the throne, Luther began to 
preach against the sale of indulgences and the supremacy of 
the pope ; began to sow the seeds of that wondrous and bene- 
ficent revolution, in which Henry himself, unwittingly as un- 
willingly, and through the instigation of his odious lusts, the 
agency of his atrocious cruelties, was destined to play so im- 
portant, and, had he but played it knowingly and faithfully, so 
magnificent a part. 

Five years yet later, when he had ruled England only fifteen 
years of the thirty-seven during which he oppressed her throne 
with the weight of his bloody tyranny, chivalry fought its last 
fight, and found its grave at Marignano and Pavia ; and gun- 
powder decided that the steel-clad cavalry of the feudal aristoc- 
racies should no longer override the people, and decide the 
fate of nations, by the shock of their lances and the clang of 
their iron horse-hoofs. 

Four new powers in the world, within the space in which 
one man creeps from his cradle to his grave ! And what four 
powers ! — each mightier in itself and in its consequences, than 
all which the intellect of man had developed, in all the antece- 
dent centuries — each in itself sufficient to have revolutionized 
the world, and recreated a new society ; and, when all four 
united, incapable of what 1 

A new power of the intellect, giving ubiquitous expansion, 
everlasting life, incompressible circulation, to all other pow- 



44 GROWING POWER OF THE MAS3ES. 

ers it had before, or should invent hereafter ; making knowl- 
edge omnipresent, light instantaneous, truth universal. 

A new world, destined from its very origin to invent, to 
imagine, to aim at, to compass all things new ; ideas, govern- 
ments, liberties, religions, theories ; to strike at all things old, 
loyalties, hierarchies, venerations, superstitions, creeds ; and to 
strike down many of them ; many of them it may be, for 
good ; many, it is to be feared, for evil. 

Anew power of religion, shaking the world of ancient error 
to its foundations ; tearing the black veil of abominable dark- 
ness with which a tyrannous and polluted church had enshrouded 
its light, from before the sanctuary ; proclaiming the inviola- 
bility of conscience ; the responsibility of the individual man 
to his God, and the accessibility of God to the individual man, 
apart from the mutterings of any earthly confessional, or the 
indulgence of any mortal mediator or dispenser. 

A new power in war, equalizing the weak with the strong, 
the peaceful with the warlike ; snatching the sway of battles 
from the fierce nobles, who had monopolized it for centuries, 
with their iron squadrons ; and giving it to the yeoman and 
the hunter, to the humble infantry of the masses. 

Four powers, all tending to one end, the perfect establish- 
ment of perfect liberty and truth ; and yet by what unhal- 
lowed means, by what unholy instruments, through what vicis- 
situdes, by what men ! 

What men, indeed ! Of what other king, save Henry VIII. 
of England, can we summon up such contemporaries? In 
Germany, Charles V. In France, Francis I. In Spain, Fer- 
dinand and Isabella. In the Papal chair, Leo X. In the Sub- 
lime Porte, Solyman the Magnificent. And, as the inferior 
persons, yet real powers of the states, and motors of the masses, 



WARS OF THE PLANTAGENETS. 45 

Columbus, Luther, Wolsey, Calvin, Cranmer — when will the 
world again behold such men combined, and such a crisis 1 
And yet what part do we find Henry playing, which side buck- 
lering, on this great stage, in this mighty conflict of opinions, 
causes, principles? What part worthy of a man exceedingly 
superior in natural qualifications, and splendidly endowed with 
artificial acquirements — what side worthy of the king of a na- 
tion, free, as freedom went in those days, intelligent, enlight- 
ened, and earnest in the question % The answer is brief and 
ready. At the head of a powerful and united nation, secured, 
as one would have thought, from all danger of collision with 
his Scottish neighbors, by the marriage of his eldest sister, 
Margaret, to the king, James IV., of that brave and restless 
nation, possessing the richest treasury in Europe, in command 
of the finest infantry in the world, which had never failed in 
the time of direst need, and of a chivalry second to none, 
Henry was the first English monai'ch who ever designedly and 
avowedly interfered, as an European power, in the politics of 
the continent. 

The kings, his predecessors, the lion-hearted and iron-handed 
Plantagenets, had indeed, waged bloody wars in France ; and 
on more than one occasion had given the English banners to 
wave in Spanish and Burgundian breezes ; but their efforts 
against France were personal, their hostility partaking the 
character of a family feud, and their cause of war originating 
in the maintenance, vindication, or recovery of their provinces 
of Normandy, Brittany, hereditary appanages of the crown, 
from the time of the conqueror, and of Anjou and Guienne, 
acquired by intermarriage with the heiresses of those states or 
counties. Their incursions into Spain, Holland, or the Low 
Countries, had arisen from casual and capricious alliances with 



46 HIS WANT OF POLICY. 

various princes at various times, always having some reference 
to their traditional enemies beyond the channel. All their 
continental enterprises, in fact, with the exception of their per- 
sistence in their claim to the Anglo-French demesnes, had 
borne more the character of angry and predatory incursions 
than of wars undertaken on any settled principles. 

Henry now advanced his claim to be heard in Europe, as a 
voice potential ; and, owing to his insular and almost inaccessi- 
ble position at home, to his brave and powerful armies, to his 
great resources, and unbounded popularity in England, he 
might have acted as arbiter and umpire between all the con- 
flicting parties, the two most powerful, France and Spain, most 
easily ; and, holding that eminent position, might have pro- 
cured for himself and his country, at no expense, whether of 
wealth or blood, all the advantages to be obtained by wasteful 
and needless wars. 

Instead of this, urged by vanity rather than ambition, by 
recklessness rather than policy, he kept the country involved 
in constant warfare, now on the French, now on the Spanish 
side; now aiding the pope, now the Protestant princes of the 
Smalcaldic league, with absolute inconsistency and total want 
of either scheme or principle. It may be safely said, that not 
one of the wars in which he lavished all his hereditary treas- 
ures, all the subsidies that he could by any means extort from 
his people, until from the wealthiest he declined into the poor- 
est prince of Europe, was undertaken in accordance with any 
national necessity, any sound principle of English or European 
policy, was closed with any gain either of advantage or honor, 
or was in any wise productive either of real or reputed good 
to himself or to his people. I do not, of course, allude to his 
war with the Scots, which was forced upon him, not sought, 



REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. 47 

and which would probably never have been undertaken, had 
he remained at peace within his own dominions, whence no 
cause but his own reckless vanity had called him to commence 
an onslaught on France, which had, from the earliest times, 
maintained the closest intimacy and alliance with the Scottish 
princes of the house of Stuart, with whom she was closely con- 
nected in her blood-royal. 

In the like manner, in the mighty earthquake of the Refor- 
mation, his policy was vacillating, his purpose null, his weight 
thrown away, until, when at length it was cast into the bal- 
ance, and instantly bore down in the scale the arrogant assump- 
tions of the Papal See, and raised the mounting principles of 
liberty and conscience to the skies, it did so not only without 
his hearty accession, but in spite of his fierce prejudices and 
cruel opposition to the cause which he obliquely and unin- 
tentionally favored, only because to do so favored his own 
sensuality. 

. Not to anticipate, however, it appears that on his first ac- 
cession to the throne, he submitted himself for a time to the 
guidance of his paternal grandmother, the countess of Rich- 
mond and Derby, and by her advice retained the old advisers 
of the king as his council. These were Warham, archbishop 
of Canterbury, his chancellor ; Sir Thomas Lovel, constable of 
the tower ; Sir Edward Poyning, comptroller; Sir Henry Mar 
ney, Sir Thomas Darcy, Doctor Ruthal, and Sir Henry Wy- 
att, to whom he associated the Earl of Surrey, who became 
his especial favorite, as treasurer, and Fox, bishop of Winches- 
ter, secretary and privy seal. By their advice he repudiated 
by proclamation all the illegal extortions and levies of his 
father, promised redress of grievances, and the punishment of 
all the agents, informers, and " promoters," as they were 



48 EMP30N AND DUDLEY - . 

termed, by whom the rapacity of Henry VII. had been fed, 
and the life-blood drained from the impoverished and groan- 
ing people, during the last reign of brass. The redress spoken 
of extended not, however, to the restitution of one mark of the 
extorted property ; and the proclamation only enkindled the 
rage of the people against the instruments of the late king's op- 
pressive tyranny. 

Tiie only permanent effect of so much noise and promise 
was the illegal verdict of a jury, the infamous attainder by act 
of parliament, and the barbarous warrant of the king, his first 
act of judicial murder — meet commencement of a reign which 
blushed crimson, ere its close, with noble and guiltless blood 
— by which Empson and Dudley were sacrificed to the popu- 
lar rage, and judicially slaughtered on the scaffold, on a charge 
utterly impossible, and which not a man in all England be- 
lieved to be true, of having conspired against the king, and 
plotted to seize the reins of government — a charge brought 
against them only, because it was determined to destroy them, 
whereas they had committed no crime for which they could 
be brought to punishment, even had they not been entitled 
to plead the king's authority in defence of all that they had 
done. 

Thus did this much belauded boy-king, in the first days of 
his new dignity, repay his people moneys wrongfully acquired 
and no less wrongfully retained, by the innocent blood of two 
wretched men, whose only crime was their implicit obedience 
to his own odious father. Such was the early and precocious 
virtue so much admired by his fautors, and the mole-eyed his- 
torians who have followed them, " which at first made him one 
of the most renowned princes of Christendom." " And thus,"* 

*Hume, in King Henry VIII., vol. iii. p. 81. 



MARRIAGE OF ARTHUR AND KATHARINE. 49 

to borrow the apposite remark of Hume, " in those arbitrary 
times, justice was equally violated, whether the king sought 
power and riches or courted popularity." 

But, in order to preserve the thread of this narrative of 
Henry's first blood-guiltiness, I have somewhat overstepped the 
mark ; for, although these wretches were convicted, pilloried, 
and paraded through the streets with their faces toward their 
horse's tails, within a few hours, or days at farthest, after the 
king's accession, they were not butchered on Tower Hill until 
the 18th of August, of the ensuing year, when it was found 
necessary either to give the petitioners their promised redress, 
or to satiate them, in lieu of it with what is so far cheaper, 
blood. And, in the meantime, a circumstance had occurred, the 
events consequent on which led to results the most important not 
only of that king's life, but of the history of England — results 
which have not ceased, and shall not cease for countless unborn 
generations, to reckon for blessings to her and her inhabitants. 

Eight years before the accession of the present monarch to 
his place, there had been a day in England, glorious for a grand 
celebration ; and Henry, then a boy of ten years, destined to 
be the future archbishop of Canterbury* had doubtless borne 
his part in the show, and delighted vastly in his own gorgeous 
apparel, and in the pomp of the procession, the splendor of the 
chivalric pageantry, the trumpets, the shoutings, and the salvos 
of the ordnance. 

That day hailed the nuptials f of his elder brother, Arthur, 

* Hemy, as duke of York, actually conducted the bride to St. Paul's, in quality of 
his brother's groomsman. 

+ This marriage took place November 14, 1501. Prince Arthur was born Septem- 
ber 20, 14S6, and was therefore fifteen years two months old. Catalina was born De- 
cember 15, 14S5, in the town of Alcala de Henares. She had just entered her six- 
teenth year.— Miss StricJcUmd. 

C 4 



50 DEATH OF PRINCE ARTHUR. 

prince of Wales, and heir apparent of England, then in his six 
teenth year, with Katharine of Arragon, daughter of Ferdinand 
and Isabella, ten months her bridegroom's senior, a lady of 
extraordinary beauty and accomplishments ; and the rejoicings 
of all parties appear to have been as sincere and hearty as the 
pageantry was gay and glorious. 

But the happiness of the young pair, if happiness there were, 
was as transitory as the show that inaugurated it ; for on the 
2d day of April, 1502, "Prince Arthur died of the plague, be- 
ing in the principality of Wales, in a place they call Ludlow. 
In this house was Donna Catalina left a widow when she had 
been married scarcely six months." * 

This passage, at a later period, may be remembered with 
profit, as it apparently goes to admit that they lived as hus- 
band and wife duriug their sojourn at Ludlow ; as there is no 
conceivable reason why they should not, for although sixteen 
would be thought young now, especially on the male side, as 
an age at which to marry, no one would hesitate to admit that 
the parties, being a vigorous English boy and a Spanish maiden, 
were decidedly marriageable ; and it must be remembered 
that, at the date of which I write, marriages were contracted 
far earlier than would be now held judicious or advisable. Af- 
ter the death of her young husband, Katharine still continued 
in England ; until, as it appears, much against her will, Henry 
VII. and her father, Ferdinand, a cold-blooded, crafty politician, 
not widely differing in manner from the English usurper, 
hatched up a marriage between her and Henry, duke of York, 
and obtained a dispensation from the then ruling pope, Julius 
II., on the ground that the former marriage had been merely 

* Bernaldes, Spanish Hist. p. 236. Quoted by Miss Strickland, vol. ii. p. 73. 



TRANSACTIONS FOR MARRIAGE. 51 

formal and had remained unconsummated, owing to the youth 
of the parties. 

In virtue of this, the young couple were betrothed in June, 
1503, at the house of the. Bishop of Salisbury, in Fleet-street ; 
and it is worthy of remark that Katharine, although she* ob- 
jected to this second marriage, her " distaste " to it and " the 
inconvenience " of such an arrangement, and yielded only to 
the\policy of her father, nowhere opposed it as incestuous or 
grievdus to her conscience, as she would probably have done, 
had she been actually and in the fullest sense the wife of Hen- 
ry's brother. 

It would appear that her mother, Isabella of Castille, in some 
sort shared in her daughter's repugnance ; for she would not 
consent until she had obtained a breve, or authenticated copy 
of the bull of dispensation, which she afterward contrived to 
transmit to her daughter, who had it in her possession six-and 
twenty f years afterward, when the validity of her marriage 
was so basely and brutally called in question. This strange 
matter did not, however, end here ; for three years later, Eliz- 
abeth of York, his amiable and delicate wife, being dead, the 
old tyrant, Henry VII., was seized with an idea of marrying 
Joanna, Katharine's eldest sister, the widow of Philip the Fair, 
and heiress of the throne of Castille, and actually compelled his 
son Henry, then prince of Wales, to sign a protest against his 
marriage with Katharine, on the ground of her previous alli- 
ance with his brother. This document was .signed on the day 



♦Miss Strickland, vol. ii. p. 74. 

tLord Herbert of Cherbury, p. 206, quarto ed. of 1740. "The breve was only a 
copy, subscribed and signed with the hand of Juan Vergara, a canon of Toledo, and 
public notary auctoritate apostolica, and with the seals of Baltasar Castiglione, the 
pope's nuncio, and the Right Reverend Father in God, Alfonso di Fonseca, arch- 
bishop of Toledo." 



52 HENRY VII. AND JOANNA OF CASTILLE. 

previous to Henry's entering his fifteenth year, but the inten- 
tions of his father in regard to Joanna being frustrated by the 
lady's insanity, the matter was hushed up, and the protest so 
carefully concealed, that it may be held certain that Katharine 
never heard of it until many years afterward. 

It is to this fact doubtless that Hume alludes when he says, 
" the prince made all the opposition of which a youth of twelve 
years old was capable ; "* but it is not true that he did so, for, 
on the contrary, no sooner did he imagine himself to be de- 
barred from her by the protest which he had signed, than, 
showing already the waywardness which afterward hardened into 
the wilful and iron obstinacy of his later character, the young 
prince made such efforts to obtain her, that his father actually 
set a watch on him to prevent his having clandestine interviews 
with his betrothed. 

At length, Henry VII. being unwillingly convinced of Queen 
Joanna's hopeless insanity, abandoned his schemes matrimo- 
nial, which Ferdinand, to do him justice, had from the first 
strenuously opposed, when the design of Henry's, the prince of 
Wales, marriage with Katharine was renewed, and two install- 
ments of her dowry were paid during the life of the old king. 
These singular and disreputable intrigues were only recently 
cleared up by Dr. Lingard,f who from consultation of the Span- 
ish authorities, especially Mariana, has explained what before 
appeared inexplicable in the conduct of Henry, thus at one 
time protesting against contracting marriage with a girl, who 
did not, to say the least, desire it, and then eagerly pressing 
the same alliance, when it was at his own option to break it. 
There can be, however, no doubt that this protest was the cause 

* Hume, in Henry VII., vol. iii. p. 601, Anno 1502. 
t Lingard, in Henry VII., vol. vii. p. — 



HENRY'S MARRIAGE WITH KATHARINE OP ARAGON. 53 

of his first conceiving the idea, in after years, of a divorce on the 
pretext of undue consanguinity. 

Immediately after his father's death, and of his own head, 
Henry brought up the matter of the marriage, declaring to 
Fuensalida that " he desired and loved her beyond all other 
women."* A deed confirmatory of her dowry was accord- 
ingly signed by herself, as princess of Wales, by Fuensalida, 
as Spanish ambassador, by Ferdinand as king of Aragon, and 
by Joanna as queen of Castille, June 7, 1509. Her marriage 
followed a few days afterward, although it is stated by Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury, to have occurred on the third. His account 
is, however, clearly set aside by the date of the above deed, and 
by the circumstantial account of Bernaldes, the Spanish histo- 
rian. " Donna Catalina," says he, " wedded the brother of her 
first lord, who was called Enrico in a place they call Grenuche'' 
— Greenwich — " on the day of St. Bernabo," — June 1 1 — "and 
was crowned afterward on the day of St. John, with all the re- 
joicings in the world."f Ferrara, another Spanish historian, 
states that " her father, King Ferdinand, was so well pleased 
at his daughter's second marriage, that he celebrated it by 
grand festivals in Spain, particularly by the jeu des cannes, or 
Moorish game of the jerreed, in which he himself bore a pari."t 

Katharine was at this time very beautiful, in the Spanish 
style, tall and of stately person, with a profusion of magnifi- 
cent black hair. " There were few women," is the testimony 
of Lord Herbert, by no means too favorable a witness on her 
side, as confining himself to statements of facts more than to 
the offering of opinions, " who could compete with Queen Kath • 



* Cardinal de la Pole, Apol. Regis, p. 86. Quoted by Lingard, vol. vii. p. 2. 

t Bernaldes, from the Middlehill MS. cap. 163, §236. Quoted by Miss Strickland., 

% Ferrara, Hist. Spain, vol. viii. p. 334 Quoted by Miss Steiokland, ii, 76, 



54 KATHARINE INTERCEDES FOR EMPSON AND DUDLEY. 

arine." It should be observed in this place that Warham, 
archbishop of Canterbury, and chancellor of England, did ob- 
ject in council to the celebration of this marriage, in conse- 
quence of undue affinity of the parties, but Fox, bishop of Win- 
chester, urging it strongly on the grounds of expediency, the 
king pressing it with all the willful headstrongness of his pas- 
sionate nature, and Katharine asserting, with the attestation of 
several noble matrons, that her marriage with Prince Arthur 
never had been consummated, all opposition was withdrawn, 
and the nuptials were performed as above stated, with a pomp 
and splendor, on which I shall dwell more at length when we 
come to treat of the queens in detail. 

It was in the month of October, following her wedding, that 
the young queen is believed by her intercession to have pro- 
cured a respite for the unhappy men, Empson and Dudley, 
though guilty of no crime against the state, which Henry, sat- 
isfied with the confiscation of all their properties, was not unwil- 
ling to grant. 

During the following summer, however, he made a royal 
progress, in the course of which he was so much harassed by 
the petitions of his subjects for redress of grievances, and for 
the punishment of the promoters, that it seems he found him- 
self compelled to grant them satisfaction on one score or the 
other. When the question lay between the surrendering his 
own selfish gratification, or sacrificing two innocent men, Henry 
VIII., even in his virtuous years of youth, could not be ex- 
pected to hesitate, and he did not. 

He was not avaricious, like his father, he did not value 
money for itself, in the least, but he desperately loved what 
money alone could produce, splendor, luxury, profusion, pomp. 
His masques, his revels, his banquets, his tournaments, his pro- 



henry's vanity and thirst of fame. 55 

gresses, were already making inroads on the hoarded treasures 
of his father. And now his people were clamorous for his 
gold, and he gave them, what pleased them as well, and suited 
himself far better, blood. 

The cry was hushed, and he returned to his pastimes, pa- 
geantry, and pleasure. For two years the court of England 
was brilliant with one continuous display of masques, banquets, 
balls by night, tournaments, jousting, and fighting at the bar- 
riers with sword or battle-ax by day, in the presence of the 
queen and her ladies, who dispensed the rewards of valor to 
the victors. 

Vanity was as distinct and as active an ingredient as either 
sensuality or selfishness, in the character of Henry VIII. It was 
moreover, as is not unusual, the first to develop and display 
itself in broad colors, for both sensuality and selfishness re- 
quire indulgence and nutriment, whereby to grow great, and 
are rarely strongly marked in the young. Henry's noble stat- 
ure, immense power, and vigorous activity, in his earlier years, 
before his limbs grew heavy and his frame obese, gave him 
surpassing advantage in all military and athletic exercises ; 
and it cannot be doubted that, in all that pertained to the use 
of weapons, the management of horses, the personal skill of 
the knight, he was a consummate man-at-arms. Proud, young 
and strong, he was brave by concurrence of natural endow- 
ments, as by the necessities of blood and birth. To do him. 
but bare justice, he was every inch a man. 

And he was now burning to display his manhood in some 
wider and more glorious field than in the tiltyard at Westmin- 
ster, or the barriers at Greenwich. He was afire to equal the 
honors of the living house of Tudor to the glories of the dead 
Plantagenets — his daily dream was the recovery of the French 



56 STATE OF EUROPE. 

provinces, lost so ingloriously in the reign of the sixth mon- 
arch of his own name, and a participation in the renown of 
Henry of Agincourt, and his own gigantic grandsire, Edward 
the Fourth, of York. He waited an occasion only, and one 
was soon made to his hands. Julius II., a wise, politic, and 
warlike prince, who, although far advanced into the winter of 
life, was still actuated by the fire and ambition of youth, filled 
the chair of St. Peter ; Maximilian represented the authority 
of the imperial Csesars in Germany ; Louis XII. wore the 
crown of France, at length united into one compact and power- 
ful kingdom ; Ferdinand, on the throne of Castille, had laid firm 
the foundations of that vast and terrible Spanish monarchy, 
which, although now sunk into hopeless decadence, for so many 
centuries overshadowed Europe with the awe of her invincible 
valor and the horror of her bloody superstition. Unhappy 
Italy, then as now, partitioned among many powers, enslaved 
and oppressed by all, was the bone of contention among the 
nations. 

The rich diadem of Naples, or the two Sicilies, was an ap- 
panage of the Spanish crown in the south. On the north, 
Louis XII. had wrested the splendid duchy of Milan from the 
arms of Ludovico Sforza. On the north-east, the Venetians, 
proud, grasping, warlike, mercantile republicans, the European 
prototypes, in many respects, of the United States of America, 
late the bulwark of Europe against the victorious power of the 
Ottoman, had encroached on the Adriatic shores of Italy, and 
severed the northern part of the Romagna from the church. 
On these encroaching islanders the warrior pope first declared 
war ; and, having speedily reduced them to sue for peace, 
granted it, as he affected to say, at the instances of Henry VIII. 
It was not, however, the Venetians, but the French, of whom 



THE FRENCH IN ITALT. 57 

he was jealous ; and, the war in the Adriatic regions com- 
posed, his ulterior views were speedily developed by his inva- 
sion of the territories of Alphonso, duke of Ferrara, a vassal 
of the Holy See, on pretext of some violation of his feudal 
rights. 

Louis XII. not deceived by the pretense, and perceiving that 
in his attachment to France lay the real offense of Alphonso, 
succored him with his army from the Milanese, under Chau- 
mont, who soon compelled the pope to evacuate the domin- 
ions of Ferrara, shut him up in Bologna, and besieged him in 
that city, without any declaration of war. Chaumont was 
forced, thereafter, to , retire by the arrival of Colonna at the 
head of a body of Spanish horse, and being beaten back into 
the Milanese, is said to have died of a broken heart. In the 
succeeding spring, however, the French arms resumed their 
supremacy ; the citadel of Bologna was stormed ; Julius was 
forced to seek safety in Ravenna, and a general appeal was 
made to all christian Europe to sustain the holy church against 
the insolent aggressions of the French ; who, it was asserted, 
had causelessly attacked the estates of the church, insulted the 
person of the pontiff, and, having conquered Milan, now aimed 
at adding to those unjustly acquired domains the hereditary 
possessions of the church. 

Europe, already alarmed at the extension of the French 
power and dominions, was rudely startled at the call. An al- 
liance, offensive and defensive, was concluded between Venice 
and Rome ; Maximilian affected, indeed, for a while, to hesi- 
tate ; but Ferdinand took arms at once, and Henry, urged by 
vanity, ambition, and the hope of reconquering the Anglo- 
French provinces, solicited moreover by his father-in-law, and 
gratified by the pontiff with the title of " Head of the Italian 
C* 



58 THE ENGLISH FLEET. 

League," eagerly declared for the church. The emperor of 
Germany soon afterward joined the league, and all parties pre- 
pared earnestly for instant war. 

It was agreed that Ferdinand and Henry should at once in- 
vade Guienne from the side of the Pyrenees, England furnish- 
ing six thousand five hundred men, and Spain nine thousand, 
for this purpose ; while, for the protection of the channel, each 
power should keep a squadron afloat, manned with three thou- 
sand mariners and artillerists. On the third day of June, 
1512, Clarencieux, king-at-arms, having demanded the restitu- 
tion of the ancient patrimony of the English crown in France, 
and received a solemn refusal, denounced war ; and on the 
same day the Earl of Dorset sailed, with the English army on 
board Spanish transports, for the coast of Guipuscoa ; while 
the Lord Admiral Sir Edward Howard cruised between Spain 
and England, during the summer, with the fleet. 

This consisted — and it is not incurious in these days of co- 
lossal armaments, to observe what three hundred years ago 
was considered a vast naval equipment — of eighteen ships. The 
greater part, as was usual in those days, were merchantmen, 
hired into the service and fitted for war, as best might be, for 
the time. Of these, the largest ship, the " Regent," was royal 
property, of one thousand tons burden, commanded by Sir 
Thomas Knyvett, with a crew of seven hundred mariners, gun- 
ners, and soldiers. The other seventeen vessels, varying from 
five hundred to one hundred tons, had a complement of seven- 
teen captains, seventeen hundred and fifty soldiers, and twelve 
hundred and thirty-three gunners and mariners ; of whom the 
lord admiral received ten shillings a day ; the captains, eighteen 
pence ; and all the others ten shillings by the lunar month, 



FAILURE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1512. 59 

one half for wages, and the other for provisions.* These ar- 
maments, however, were wholly unsuccessful. Ferdinand re- 
fused to accede to Dorset's desire of invading Guienne by way 
of the passes of Fontarabia, until the kingdom of Navarre, 
which was in the possession of Jean d'Albret, a vassal of France 
for the principality of Beam, and known to be in strict allegi- 
ance with that monarch, should be reduced, and its fortresses 
occupied by the Spanish forces. When this end was accom- 
plished, and, the Spanish army having advanced to St. Jean 
Pie de port, the invasion of Guienne was proposed in earnest, 
Dorset, whose army, lying inactive at Fontarabia, had been 
attacked by disease and infected by a spirit of mutiny, utterly 
refused to stir ; alleging his distrust of the king, and the ne- 
cessity of adhering to the strictest letter of his instructions. 
Six weeks of dissension and recrimination followed ; disease 
and discontent increased, and Lord Dorset returned home with 
all his forces, just before Windsor, the herald, arrived with the 
king's commands that he should remain, and obey the orders 
of the Spanish monarch. 

Henry was seriously and justly aggrieved. He had fully 
reckoned on the recovery of Guienne ; but, as is usually the 
case when England is acting in alliance with continental pow- 
ers, he had as his lot the losses, mortifications, and expenses, 
while his allies and enemies divided the advantages. 

Ferdinand conquered the kingdom of Navarre ; Louis seized 
the principality of Beam ; both of which provinces belong, to 
this day, to the successors of the monarchs who conquered 
them. Jean d'Albret lost the whole of his dominions, .the 
French king having entered on a composition with Ferdinand, 
though he made a show of succoring Navarre, by sending a 

*Bymer xiii, 313 to 319. Quoted by Lingard, vL 10. 



60 CONFLAGRATION OF THE ■" REGENT." 

force — under Richard de la Pole, titular duke of Suffolk, who 
had been, since the reign of Henry VII., a political exile in 
France, and who was now guilty of the frantic folly of i eviving 
the party of "the White Rose," against the house of Tudor — 
to the relief of Pampeluna. The expedition failed, if, indeed, 
it was ever intended to succeed. Jean d'Albret fell to the 
ground between the two great kingdoms, which absorbed his 
small dominions. Louis and Ferdinand satisfied themselves 
with securing their new conquests. Henry VIII. saw his army 
return to England, after an idle and inglorious campaign, weak- 
ened by the loss of nearly three thousand men,* who perished 
without drawing a sword, by the malignant fevers of the coun- 
try, stimulated by excess in the hot wines of Spain. The folly 
of Richard de la Pole in taking service under the French, and 
reviving an unfounded and unsupported claim to the English 
crown, had no result beyond the death of his brother Edmund, 
earl of Suffolk, who had remained, since the late king's death, 
a prisoner in the tower, and was shortly afterward brought to 
the block, chiefly, it would seem, on account of his brother's 
treason. 

The fortune of the English fleet was in no wise superior, du- 
ring this campaign, to that of the army ; for, haying fallen in 
with a powerful French squadron off Brest, a naval engagement 
ensued, in the course of which the desperate courage of Kny- 
vett having involved the great ship, " Regent," in the midst of 
the enemy, he was grappled by Primauget, the French com- 
mander, in a yet greater ship, the " Cordelier de Brest," when 
both vessels taking fire, were utterly consumed with all their 
crews, a few of the enemy alone excepted, who made their es- 
cape by swimming. The French declined further action, and 

♦ Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 23. 



CAPTURE OF SCOTCH VESSELS. 61 

found refuge under the batteries of Brest ; but the loss of the 
" Regent" was regarded an event so disastrous that it was con- 
cealed from the public, until the king had supplied its loss by 
the construction of a yet larger vessel, which he named " Henry 
Grace Dieu," but which is familiarly known to this day as 
the " Great Harry," the largest ship in the world, of those 
days. 

I should have observed that in the preceding year, 1511, two 
events had occurred, both of which, although neither of much 
immediate importance, had some influence on the future cir- 
cumstance of this remarkable reign. 

The first of these was the delivery of Queen Katharine, on 
the first day of the year, of a son, to the great joy of the father, 
and among the general rejoicings of the nation. The happi- 
ness, however, of both king and people proved to be prema- 
ture ; for the child died before the month closed, and his fate 
seemed to be in some sort prophetic ; since out of several 
births no heir male was spared to Henry, who earnestly de- 
sired one, nor did any other child survive of this marriage, ex- 
cept the Princess Mary, afterward queen, who was born on 
February 18, 1516. 

The second was the capture and destruction, near the mouth 
of the Thames, by the Lord Thomas and Sir Edward Howard, 
of a Scottish squadron, commanded by three brothers named 
Barton, the bravest and most experienced officers of James IV. 
These brothers, it appears, had, in 1506, received letters of 
marque and reprisals against the Portuguese, who had, they 
alleged, above thirty years before, captured a merchant vessel 
of their father's. Not content, however, with revenging them- 
selves on their legitimate enemies, from privateering they 
turned to piracy, and committed such violences on English 



62 RISE OF WOLSEY. 

commerce, that the king issued orders for their capture ; and 
the destruction of their vessels was followed by hostilities with 
Scotland, which took advantage of the continuance of the war 
with Trance, to lend aid to her old ally, and plant a thorn in 
the side of her border enemy. 

It was about this time that Thomas Wolsey, a man of in- 
ferior birth, but of parts, energy, capacity, and ambition equal 
only to the elevation to which he afterward rose, and to the 
depth of his downfall and disgrace, began to acquire the great 
ascendency over the king, which he so long enjoyed. 

The son, it is said, though to me the report seems doubtful, 
of a butcher in Ipswich, he had become chaplain of the house- 
hold, almoner, and, at last, one of the counselors of the late 
king ; and in the latter quality displayed so much prompt abil- 
ity, that his farther rise was, it is supposed, prevented only by 
the death of the monarch. His learning first recommended 
him to Henry VIII., himself both erudite and proud of his eru- 
dition, nor unwilling, at times, to mix in literary disquisitions, 
and to busy himself earnestly in the affairs of the realm. His 
rare tact in adapting himself to the humors of his patron, his wil- 
lingness to join in his revelries, his jovialities, his pleasures, and 
his pomps, his ready wit, profuse liberality, and art in "making 
his private house a theatre for all manner of pleasures, whither 
he frequently brought the king," * endeared him yet farther to 
the magnificent and pleasure-loving prince. And finally his 
artifice of introducing business in the midst of pleasure, indu- 
cing the monarch to give just so much of attention to its trans- 
action, at hours when he would fain have been otherwise em- 
ployed, as should suffice to disgust him with it, and then re- 
lieving him of the unwelcome burthen, succeeded in raising 

* Lord Horbert of Ckerbury, p. 30. 



THE BATTLE OF RAVENNA. 63 

him to the highest place of trust, to the absolute confidence of 
Henry, and, in fact, to the supreme conduct of the affairs of 
England. 

In the meantime, if Henry's interference in the affairs of Eu- 
rope had produced no advantages to himself, it was far other- 
wise with the league ; to which the powerful diversion, effected 
by the presence of his troops on the southern frontier of France, 
his threatened invasion of Guienne, and the necessity imposed 
on Louis of keeping a large force on foot to hold him in check, 
secured the advantage. 

Although, in the outset of the campaign, French valor and 
impetuosity carried all before it in Italy ; though a thunder- 
stroke at Ravenna fell on the Spanish and Papal forces ; and 
though that city was carried by storm — reverses ill-compen- 
sated by the loss of ten thousand men and their gallant leader, 
Gaston de Foix, to the victors — the armies of Louis were 
forced, step by step, to fall back into the Milanese; were 
routed, one fourth of their numbers being slain on the Tesino ; 
and were, before Christmas, driven in confusion across the 
mountains ; so that the boast of the pope was fulfilled to the 
letter, that he was " resolute to chase the last barbarian beyond 
the Alps." 

During the winter, finding himself unable to cope with the 
united league in arms, Louis XII. had now recourse to finesse, 
and fortune favored him. Julius, the ambitious and warrior- 
pope, was gathered to his predecessors, and Giovanni di Medicis, 
who was elected in his stead under the title of Leo X., though 
he did not avowedly secede from his engagement with the allies, 
at least ceased to exert himself actively in a cause which, it is 
said * he never seriously approved. Ferdinand of Spain, a 

* Lingard, Hist. Eng. Henry VIII. 



64: PROSECUTION OP THE WAR, 1513. 

crafty, politic, and never too trustworthy prince, was easily in- 
duced to abstain from active operations, and to remain neutral ; 
while the Venetians, who had of late been engaged on the Ro- 
man party, were enabled by Leo's lukewarmness to secede 
from the allies, and make common cause with Louis. 

Henry, however, was only incensed by this defection, and 
rendered more resolute to persist ; the Swiss had engaged to 
second him by. an irruption into Burgundy ; the Emperor 
Maximilian, whom he had subsidized with one hundred and 
twenty thousand crowns,* had promised to second the Swiss, 
with eight thousand Germans ; the people of England were 
strenuous for the prosecution of the war, and granted him an 
ample sum to be raised by rigorous taxation ; f and, thus en- 
couraged, he determined to take the field in person, and re- 
conquer the lost inheritance of the kings, his predecessors. 

The war commenced with naval operations, in the month of 
April, when the admiral, Sir Edward Howard, sailed in quest 



* Hume, Hist. Eng. iii. 96. 

t This tax was fixed after the following rate — Polls xxvi-xxvii. 



£ s d 
A duke, . . . . 6 13 4 

Marquess or earl, and wives, . 4 
Baron, baronet,:}: and baroness, 2 
Knights not lords of parliament, 1 10 
Proprietors of lands above £40, 

yearly value, . . . .10 
From £20 to £40, . . . 10 
From £10 to £20, . . .050 

From £2 to £10, . . .020 
Below £2, . . . . 10 
Possessors of £S0O, personals, . 2 13 4 
From £400 to £S00, . . .200 



£ s d 
Possessors of personal property, 

from £200 to £400, . .16 8 
From £100 to £200, . . 18 4 
From £40 to £100, . . .008 
From £20 to £40, . . . 3 4 
From £10 to £20, . . .018 
From £2 to £10, . . . 10 
Laborers and servants with wages 

of £2 yearly, . . . .010 
From %\ to $2, . . . 6 
All other persons, . . .004 
Quoted by Lingard, vi. 14. 



% From these rates it appears that the old distinction between greater and lesser 
barons was not yet abolished. They are called barons and baronets, and are consid- 
ered equally as lords of parliament. — Lingard. 

The above rate is very curious, as showing the comparative value of money ; and 
also the comparative poverty of the greatest peers ; a duke being taxed only as an 
owner of personals to the value of about £200. 



DEATH OF THE LORD ADMIRAL. 65 

of the enemy, having sworn, it seems, to avenge the loss of the 
Regent, or to die in the attempt. The French fleet, it seems, 
lay in Brest harbor, and refused, though insulted by the En- 
glish squadron, to come out and engage, expecting daily to be 
relieved by Prejent, a knight of Rhodes, with six galleys. An 
attempt was made to attack the enemy at their moorings, but 
it failed altogther, one ship, the " Plantagenet," being cast away 
on a blind rock, and the rest of the squadron compelled to haul 
off, by the fire of the batteries, as well as by rafts and fire- 
ships, which were prepared to drift down with the tide on the 
English ships. 

Meanwhile, Prejent arrived with six galleys and four foysts,* 
and put into Blanc Sablon Bay, near Conquet, a little below 
Brest, and moored his vessels between two rocks, which had 
bulwarks on them, full of ordnance. From this strong position 
the lord admiral determined to cut them out ; and, attacking 
them with four galleys, himself grappled Prejent and boarded 
him in person, one Carroz, a Spanish cavalier, and seventeen 
Englishmen following him. Whether, however, the grapnels 
parted, or the mariners, overpowered by the fire of the enemy's 
batteries, cut them loose, the brave Sir Edward was left un- 
supported, and was, in the end, after casting his golden whistle, 
the insignia of his office as lord admiral, into the sea, borne 
overboard, by the pikes of the French, into the waves, where he 
perished unknown to his adversaries. 

Dejected and disconcerted by this loss, the English fleet re- 
treated into its own harbors, and Prejent insulted the coasts of 
Sussex, and even landed on them ; but was repulsed with the 
loss of an eye, extinguished by an arrow shot, and of some of 
his men. This appears to have contented him, or probably the 

* H-wbert of Cberbury, fol. 29. 

5 



GO EXECUTION OF THE EARL OF SUFFOLK. 

English squadrons were so strongly reinforced, Lord Thomas 
Howard being now appointed admiral in lieu of his brother, 
that he could no longer keep the seas against them. At all 
events, he made no more head that year, but returned to his 
own port?, leaving the mastery of the narrow seas to the Lord 
Howard, who scoured them effectually and secured the debar- 
kation of the invading forces at Calais. 

Wolsey was now fully admitted as prime minister of the 
kingdom, and to him it was, doubtless, in some sort, due that 
the parliament agreed, though not without opposition, to the 
departure of the king in person, at the head of the army of in- 
vasion, to the victualing of which "Wolsey had been appointed, 
not without some sarcasm on his origin. The objections of 
the parliament were founded on the fact, that the king had as 
yet no heirs male ; that his sister Margaret, wife of James IV. 
of Scotland, was the next in the line of succession ; and that, 
in case of any disaster befalling Henry and his forces, the 
realm would probably be again thrown into confusion by the 
rivalry of divers competitors for the crown. 

The king's ambition of glory was not, however, to be re- 
strained ; and by the aid and arguments of Wolsey the scru- 
ples of the parliament were overcome, and the army was em- 
barked for Calais. It was, however, deemed expedient, in or- 
der to secure the peace of the kingdom and remove a danger- 
ous competitor, to bring the unfortunate earl of Suffolk, Ed- 
mund de la Pole, to the block ; and he was accordingly execu- 
ted, under Henry's warrant, in the tower. 

This unhappy nobleman, who Avas the nephew of Edward 
IV., being son of John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, by that 
king's sister, Elizabeth, and consequently nearly connected to 
Henry, had, through his intrigues against the late king, and 



EXECUTION OF THE EARL OF SUFFOLK. 67 

the ill favor in which he stood with his court, been induced to 
take refuge in Burgundy, then under the rule of Philip of Cas- 
tille. From that monarch, who was forced by stress of weather 
to land on the English coast, while on his way to his Spanish 
kingdom, which he had inherited in right of his wife, Joanna, 
Henry VII. had extorted the surrender of Suffolk ; and, though 
at Philip's intercession he spared his life, he had kept him in 
close confinement in the tower, where he had continued to this 
moment. 

It is said that the late king on his death-bed had earnestly 
advised Henry to this act of cruelty, no farther legal process 
being requisite, as he had been already attainted by the peers ; 
but it appears to me improbable — as it is evidently doubted 
by the elder historians — that this was the true or sole cause 
of his being now, after the lapse of four years since the old 
king's death, brought to the block, without farther cause of 
suspicion. 

Edmund de la Pole was himself, it is clear, a man of bold 
and turbulent spirit ; one of his brothers, the Earl of Lincoln, 
had fallen in the bloody battle of Stoke, supporting the cause 
of the impostor, Lambert Simnel ; another, now in arms for 
the French king, had revived the faction of York, and set up 
the rival emblem of " the White Rose ; " and, whether it be 
true or no, as Henry's ambassadors were ordered to allege at 
the courts to which they were accredited, that a treasonable 
correspondence had been discovered between the brothers, it 
is clear to me that jealousy of his pretensions, apprehensions 
of the popular good will to the house of York, and a well- 
founded dread of disturbances during the absence, or in case 
of the demise, of the king, led to this execution. Policy cer- 
tainly commended the measure ; strict justice, as it was then 



bO INVASION OF FRANCE. 

understood, did not forbid it; and Henry, even in his yet un 
perverted youth, was not one to be deterred by a little blood, 
shed on grounds even more questionable than this of Suffolk, 
from securing his ease, much more his security, and the succes- 
sion to his throne. 

Suffolk died, therefore, cruelly enough, but not probably so 
innocent as has been pretended by some writers, and certainly 
not without warrant of law. 

The vanguard of England now sailed for Calais, consisting 
of eight thousand men, under George Talbot, earl of Shrews- 
bury, the high steward, Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby, Sir 
Robert Ratcliffe, the Lord Fitzwater, the Lord Hastings, the 
Lord Cobham, and Sir Rice ap Thomas, the captain of the 
light horse. These landed in the English pale, in the middle 
of the month of May, and were followed within fifteen days 
by Herbert, the lord chamberlain, with the Earls of North- 
umberland, Kent and Wiltshire, the Lords Audley and De-la- 
warr, the Barons Carrow and Curzon, and many knights and 
esquires, in command of the middleward, or centre, consisting 
of six thousand men. On the 17th of June, by the king's or- 
ders, these forces marched in good order of battle to Terou- 
enne, where they arrived on the 22d, and sat down at about 
one mile's distance before the town, which " was fenced with a 
large ditch, strong bulwarks, and a quantity of ordnance, which 
shot freshly, insomuch that the Baron of Carrow, master of the 
ordnance, was the first night killed by a bullet in the Lord Her- 
bert's tent, which came so near him, that the French, though 
erroneously, write that he was slain there."* 

Terouenne was garrisoned by about two thousand foot, and 

* Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 33 el seq., from whom most of the following de- 
tails are taken. 



SIEGE OF TEROUENNE. biJ 

two hundred and fifty lances, commanded by Mons. Fran- 
cois 'de Teligny, and Anthoine de Crequy, seigneur de Pondor- 
my, and was at once invested by Shrewsbury on the north-west, 
and Herbert on the east side of the place, whence they made 
their approaches with such vigor that it was soon evident, that 
unless relieved, the town must ere long surrender. A power- 
ful army was now raised by the French for this purpose, re- 
inforced by ten thousand men under the Duke of Guelders,and six 
thousand under Richard de la Pole, brother of Edmund, who 
had been recently beheaded; but they moved slowly and with 
hesitation, for Louis, when he had advanced so far as to Amiens, 
received intelligence of the defeat of his armies at Novara, in 
Italy, and of the irruption of the Swiss, supported by three 
thousand German horse of the emperor's, into Burgundy, 
where they had laid siege to Dijon, and, alarmed by the news 
and humbled by the disaster, resolved, with the advice of his 
counsel, not to risk a battle, but merely to endeavor to pro- 
tract the siege, and try the effect of negotiation. 

At length, in the end of June, Henry set sail in person, hav- 
ing before his departure appointed " his most dear consort,* 
queen Katharine, rectrix and governor of the realm," and left 
the Earl of Surrey as his lieutenant in the north, to protect 
the borders against James, who was openly arming, and in 
avowed alliance with France. 

Four hundred sail of transports conveyed the young and 
daring monarch, accompanied by his new almoner and favor- 
ite, Wolsay, the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Charles Brandon, 
recently created Earl of Lisle, the Earl of Essex, Sir Edward 
Poynings, Sir Henry Guilford, bearer of the royal standard, and 

* Eymer siii. 3T0, 372. Quoted by Lingai'd, Hist. Eng., Henry VIII., voL vi. 15. 



70 HENRY SITS DOWN BEFORE TEROUENNE. 

many more, the flower of the English chivalry and aristocracy, 
with about twelve thousand men, a powerful wagon train, and 
a strong park of great ordnance, among which were the famous 
pieces known as the " twelve apostles." 

For nearly a month Henry lingered in Calais, where he 
was visited by the ambassadors of the emperor, by the Duke 
of Brunswick, and the regent of Flanders, wasting his time 
and a portion of the treasures destined to the maintenance of 
his army and the prosecution of the war, in carousals, enter- 
tainments, pageants and pomps of all kinds, in which he ever 
took so much delight. 

. At length, hearing that the French were in motion to relieve 
Terouenne, he moved his army on the 21st of July, and had 
barely advanced so far as to Ardres, when it was announced 
that the enemy's outposts were in view. Hereupon, Sir Rice 
ap Thomas, who had ridden forth with about five hundred light 
horse to meet the king, reinforced by the Earl of Essex and 
Sir Thomas Guilford, with a detachment of horse archers, ad- 
vanced and drove them back, though two English guns were 
lost, one of which was recovered on the following day, after a 
sharp skirmish. 

On the 4th of August, Henry pitched a sumptuous pavillion 
for himself under the walls of Terouenne, and made prepara- 
tions to receive the Emperor Maximilian, who was on his way 
to join him with a few German and Flemish soldiers, and to 
make his excuses for that he had failed of furnishing the Swit- 
zers with his full complement of men. About the same time, 
Lyon, the Scottish king at arms, made his appearance in the 
camp and was introduced to the king by Garter, king at arms, 
as bearer of a letter from James IV., containing expostulations 
for pretended injuries, and a denunciation of war in case satis- 



HENRY DEFIES JAMES OF SCOTLAND. 71 

faction should be refused. Henry, at first, delivered a sharp, 
verbal reply, but Lyon refusing to be the bearer of any answer 
by word of mouth, afterward indited a letter, in which he 
plainly declared, that he was aware of his intent, which was 
merely to pick a quarrel, with a view to aid the French king, 
and to invade his dominions in his absence; warned him to take 
heed lest he shared the fate of Jean d'Albret of Navarre, who 
had lost his crown for aiding Louis in like manner, and conclu- 
ded by saying that he had left a stout earl in the north, who 
would well know how to defend his master's cause in his mas- 
ter's absence, and assuring him that " what he did to him or his 
realm now he was absent, would be remembered and requited 
again in like measure."* 

This letter, however, James was never destined to receive ; 
for, before his herald could return, he had invaded England, 
and falling, with the flower of his kingdom's chivalry, had lost 
crown and life together, on the fatal field of Flodden. 

Terouenne had not, up to this time, been completely invested ; 
and a French leader, De Fonterailles, taking advantage of the 
unfinished state of the lines on the side of the river Lys, broke 
through them at the head of eight hundred Albanian horse, 
each of whom carried a sack of gunpowder and two quarters 
of bacon, en croupe, and throwing down the supplies thus boldly 
introduced, at the gates of the town, brought off his men in 
safety, before the English could muster sufficient force under 
arms to intercept him. 

On the 12th of August Maximilian arrived in camp, and as 
he brought no considerable power with him, assumed the red 
cross of St. George, and asked permission to serve as Henry's 

* Herbert of Cherbury, foL 85. 



72 BATTLE OF THE SPURS. 

volunteer, which flattered Henry's pride to such a degree,- that 
beside assigning to the Imperial private pay of a hundred crowns 
a day, and erecting a splendid pavilion of cloth of gold for his 
entertainment, he entirely overlooked his failure to fulfill his 
engagements of cooperation, and deferred so much to his ad- 
vice, that he was in fact the real commander of the combined 
armies. 

Immediately on his arrival, Henry caused five bridges to be 
thrown across the Lys, and on the 16th he crossed the river 
in person, with Maximilian and a considerable portion of the 
army. 

Scarcely were they across the river, when the light horse 
announced the approach of the French in force, who embold- 
ened, it would seem, by their late success, intended to renew 
the attempt on a larger scale. Under the Dukes of Longue- 
ville and d'Alencon, the French army, consisting principally 
of cavalry, which had been collected at Blangy, divided into 
two parties, advanced on the two sides of the Lys, when Henry, 
by the advice of his imperial volunteer, who was well acquainted 
with the country, and had already twice beaten the French on 
nearly the same ground, determined to give them battle. 

Maximilian accordingly advanced with a few squadrons of 
German horse, and the horse archers of the English,* while 
Henry mustered the infantry and brought it up to support the 
cavalry ; but the main body of the troops had no opportunity 
to distinguish themselves, for an event ensued equally unex- 
pected and incomprehensible. The French gendarmerie, con- 

*It is not clear what this arm of the service was. The terrible English longbow 
of six feet in length, with its clothyard arrows, was incompatible with horse service. 
These men were probably mounted only on tho march, for speed, but fought 
on foot 



SURRENDER OF TEROUENNE. 73 

listing entirely of gentlemen at the head of their feudal retain- 
ers, inured to service in the Italian campaigns, during which 
they had covered themselves with glory, and acquired the rep- 
utation of being the best cavalry in Europe, constituting a body 
of ten thousand incomparable horse, gave way at the first shock 
of the advanced guards. The panic spread from man to man, 
through the whole force, their officers, laboring to rally them, 
were abandoned to the pursuers, and, for above four miles, 
they fled in headlong rout and consternation before three 
troops of German reiters and a few hundreds of English light 
horse, not equal to a tithe of their own numbers, who had ex- 
ecution of them through the whole distance, and made prison- 
ers of many, the proudest names in Erance and most celebra- 
ted knights in Europe. Hymbercourt and La Palisse were 
taken, but either escaped in the confusion of the melee, or, as 
some say, were admitted to ransom and released on the in- 
stant ; but the Duke de Longueville, the Marquis de Rotelin, 
the Chevalier Bayard, Bussy d'Amboise, La Eayette, and 
Clermont were secured, and presented by their captors to 
Henry and the emperor, when the latter returned, still wear- 
ing the red cross badge of England, and greeted his nominal 
commander as victor of the day. No better fortune befell the 
enemy in other quarters of the field ; for a detachment, which 
had endeavored to intercept an English convoy between Guisnes 
and Terouenne, was routed with great loss, and its com- 
mander, Mons. du Plessis, slain. In the meantime, the Erench 
horse, on the other side of the Lys, which had beat up the 
Earl of Shrewsbury's quarters, with a view to introduce suc- 
cors and to reprovision the town, were met by Sir Rice ap 
Thomas, with a sharp sally, and forced to retreat, having ef- 
fected nothing ; while a sortie, en ma&se^ of the garrison and 
D 



74 ENTRANCE OF THE ALLIES INTO TEROUENNE. 

townsmen, intended as a diversion in- the opposite quarter, was 
anticipated by Lord Herbert, who had his men under arms 
and well in hand to receive them, and beaten in again more 
quickly thau they had sallied. 

This was the famous battle of Guinegate, better known as 
the " Battle of the Spurs," as it was termed by the French, 
equally prompt to ridicule their own and their enemies' mis- 
adventures, on which rested all the small glory which accrued 
to Henry from this unprofitable war, barren of all advantage 
beyond the capture of two frontier towns, wholly unimportant, 
unless as a basis for future operations. A Te Deum was per- 
formed in honor of this easy victory, and, a few days afterward, 
the Seigneur de Pondormy, despairing of relief, surrendered 
the place with all its ordnance to the king, on condition that 
he should march out with bag and baggage, drums beating 
and colors flying. And this he did on the 24th of August, 
when the allies entered the place, Maximilian still yielding the 
precedence to the English monarch, who, at his solicitation, 
caused the whole town, with its fortifications, defences, and 
even its private dwellings, to be razed to the ground, nothing 
being excepted but the churches and religious houses. This, 
although it nearly adjoined the English pale, and might have 
been maintained at no great cost, because it bordered so closely 
on Maximilian's territory in the Low Countries, and so greatly 
straitened his cities of Aire and St. Omar, that, should it at 
any time fall into the hands of the French, it would be a se- 
vere thorn in his side? France was at this moment in the 
most imminent peril. No similar dangers had beset her since 
the dark days of Poictiers. Henry was at the head of a pow- 
erful, complete, and victorious army, with but a few days' 
Lfiarcb, and no covering army, between himself and the gates 



INVESTMENT OF TOURNAY. 75 

of Paris. The chivalry of the kingdom, dispersed and disor- 
ganized by their late disgrace, could not be rallied to defend 
the capital, many of the inhabitants of which were beginning to 
dislodge, without knowing whither to resort for greater secu- 
rity. The Swiss were besieging Dijon, which could not be re- 
lieved, nor could be expected long to resist their assaults. 
Ferdinand of Spain, though he had made a truce with Louis, 
could be depended on by him, so long only as his interests 
should be subserved by neutrality. 

Louis was in the extremity of consternation and perplexity, 
not knowing whither to turn for assistance, when the blunder- 
ing strategy, and yet more blundering diplomacy, of his ene- 
mies liberated him from all anxiety. 

Henry, who could, beyond doubt, have marched almost un- 
opposed to the gates of Paris, and perhaps have there dictated 
a peace, turned aside to invest Tournay, a French town, 
strongly fortified, within the limits of the Spanish Nether- 
lands, affording to its possessors, for the time being, the key of 
either country. 

To Spain, therefore, as owning the Low Countries, and to 
France, the possession of this fortress was of primary impor- 
tance, since either nation must necessarily occupy it before ad- 
vancing into the territories of the other, in order to strike a 
telling blow. 

To England, it must, under any circumstances, be worthless, 
even while that country held the fortress and seaport of Calais, 
with the adjoining district within the English pale, since it is 
so remote, even from that frontier, as to render its occupation, 
except by an enormous garrison, impossible in peace, and in war 
altogether hopeless. 

It was nothing short, therefore, of absolute folly in Henry, 



76 TIDINGS OF FLODDEN FIELD. 

to suffer himself to be turned aside from the true object of the 
war to this vain and useless enterprise ; Maximilian, however, 
whose interests were nearly concerned, as they had been in 
the razing of Terouenne, persuaded him to the undertaking, 
which was begun and completed with equal facility. On his 
way thither, Henry tarried, however, three days at Lisle, at 
the instance of the Archduchess Margaret, the regent of Flan- 
ders, and of his nephew, the Prince Charles of Spain, nephew of 
his own royal consort Katharine. Fast flew those three days of 
revelry and merry-making, and scarce less fast the eight of 
open trenches, which only, after sending a bold and chivalrous 
defiance in reply to the king's summons to surrender, the fat 
burghers of Tournay endured, before yielding themselves on 
base conditions. They accepted an English garrison, swore 
fealty to Henry, and paid down for the expenses of the war, 
fifty thousand crowns of the sun in one sum, agreeing to pay 
forty thousand livres Tournois, by instalments, within the ten 
years next ensuing. 

There, on the very day of the surrender of the city, being 
September 21st, came to the king a messenger from the Earl 
of Surrey, bearing the tidings of the decisive battle of Flodden 
Field, with, as a token of its truth, the gauntlet and coat ar- 
mor of the unfortunate James, who fell there, in an unjust 
quarrel, though with a gallantry well worth a better cause, 
with all the flower of his realm. The battle was fierce, terri- 
ble, and well contested, and had, in truth, well nigh gone against 
the English, as indeed it must have done, but for the skillful 
strategy of the Earl of Surrey, and the chivalrous daring of 
his officers. 

In the commencement, the Scottish had so much the advan- 
tage of position, which they appeared resolute to keep, that 



THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD. 11 

the defeat of the English seemed inevitable, until, by a skillful 
movement, at the advice, it is said, of his son, Lord Thomas 
Howard, the high admiral, Surrey crossed the river Till to its 
right bank, and having executed a long flank march, as if with 
a view to giving the enemy the slip and penetrating into Scot- 
land, recrossed it by Twisel bridge, in the rear of the Scottish 
camp, and advanced as if to assault the king's lines. 

James, alarmed by this demonstration, fired his camp on the 
hill to conceal his movements, and covered by the smoke of 
the conflagration, broke down in five solid phalanxes of spears, 
the favorite Scottish order of battle, upon his enemies, who 
scarce saw, before they felt, his columns. The conflict was 
stern and doubtful. The right wing of the English, under Sir 
Edmund Howard, was broken, its banners beaten down and its 
commander unhorsed, by the desperate onset of Lord Home, 
with his serried spearmen ; but the battle was restored by the 
bastard of Heron with a band of border outlaws, and the strife 
closed again dark and dubious, until Lord Dacre with the re- 
serve of fifteen hundred lances, charged home on the flank of 
the Scottish pikes, and finished the struggle in that quarter by 
putting the enemy to a precipitate rout. Next, toward the 
centre, the admiralwas long oppressed by the stern charge of 
the Earls of Huntley, Errol and Crawford, with a dense mass 
of seven thousand Scots, probably Highlanders, on whom he 
could make no impression, till at length, when their chiefs were 
slain, they wavered and were thrown into confusion. In the 
centre, Surrey had to sustain the steady and sustained attack 
of James himself, who fought on foot at the head of the flower 
of his army, all cased in complete steel, on whom the fatal hail 
of the English archery was showered almost in vain. 

Foot by foot, animated by the presence of their king, bear- 



78 THE CRISIS OP THE DAY. 

ing down all before them, onward and onward pressed the tin 
broken iron lines of that mighty column, which, like the fa- 
mous Macedonian phalanx of old, could be shaken by no front 
attack, however fiery or persistent. In vain Surrey exhausted 
all his efforts to resist them. Resolute to win, ignorant how 
the day went in other quarters, and confident of victory, they 
bore onward, onward — they were within three spears' length 
of the royal banner, and Surrey looked abroad for who should 
rescue it, and saw none. For, on the right, the dreadful con- 
test, which the admiral's division had endured, was not yet so 
far decided that he could detach a man to relieve the centre, 
and on the left all seemed wild and inextricable confusion. 
From the left, however, the succor was to come which should 
convert that half-lost battle into an almost unexampled vic- 
tory, the saddest day for Scotland, bewailed by her border 
bards in those sweet laments which still survive, complaining 
in their simple pathos that " the flowers of the forest are a' wede 
away." 

For there fought Sir Edward Stanley, with the Cheshire men 
hardened in the Welch wars, and the famous Kendal archery, 
and there the column of Argyle and Lennox, whose tartan 
plaids could not brook the clothyard arrows like the steel coats 
of the Lothianers and Mersemen, opened its ranks, unable to 
endure the murderous volleys of the Westmoreland bowmen, 
and " therein seemed to give one of the first overtures of vic- 
tory."* Their confusion was completed by a charge of three 
companies of men-at-arms, when Stanley, by a general ad- 
vance, drove them over the ridge of the hill, and wheeling 
promptly and in good order to his right, fell on the flank and 

* Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 40. 



THE CARNAGE AT FLODDEST. ' 79 

rear of the king's yet unbroken column. That gallant mon- 
arch fell by an unknown hand within a spear's length of Surrey, 
but his death was not known at the time to either party. 
Once checked in its forward career, that great solid mass of 
spears, like the Koman army at Cannse, like the mighty En- 
glish square at Fontenoy, like the thundering column of Lan- 
nes at Aspern, like the young guard of Ney at Waterloo, was 
hemmed in on all sides, and, though it fought to the last, un- 
daunted, neither giving nor receiving quarter, was, ere the sun 
set, annihilated. From the right, at last victorious over their 
immediate adversaries, in rushed Sir Edmund and the admiral ; 
in rushed, with his bloody lances, Dacre and the reserve, which 
had already carried all before them and restored the day, when 
the Blanche Lion of the Howards reeled to the blows of the 
Scottish Unicorn. Yet still outnumbered and surrounded, the 
stubborn hardihood of Scotland endured to the last. Forming, 
when all was lost, a huge serried circle, they long resisted all 
attempts to break them, and were at last crushed, not con- 
quered, for until darkness closed over that dreadful scene, 

" Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, 

As fearlessly and well, 
Each stepping in his neighbor's place, 

The moment that he fell."* 

In the account of the lord admiral, the whole Scottish force 
is roundly stated at eighty thousand men ; but it is probable 
that of these nearly thirty thousand were a mere rabble of 
camp followers, and that Lord Herbert states the king's power 
more truly at fifty thousand. The battle began between four 
and five in the afternoon, and lasted, according to the last au- 

* Sir Walter Scott, Marmion. 



SQ THE CARNAGE AT FLODDEN. 

thor, nearly three hours, which made, he says, " the event doubt, 
ful and the execution great." Night, which came on ere the 
action was well over, and the want of cavalry on the part of 
the English, who seem to have had no horse, except Dacre's 
reserve of fifteen hundred lances on the right, and a few squad- 
rons of men-at-arms on the left, put an early end to the pur- 
suit ; but in the conflict itself, so bloody were the hand-to-hand 
encounters of those days, ten thousand Scots were left dead 
on the field, while of the victors, no less than five thousand 
were slain. 

On the following morning, however, the results of that 
bloody action were more ^asy to be perceived ; of the English 
dead, the great part were persons of small note, and no one in- 
dividual of high celebrity had fallen. Of the Scottish, on the 
contrary, beside the king, who was found where he had fallen, 
with two wounds, either of them mortal, the one of an arrow- 
shot, the other the fearful gash of a brownbill, all the flower 
of the nobility lay there, cold in their gore. The illegitimate 
son of James, titular archbishop of St Andrews, two bishops, 
two abbots, twelve earls, thirteen barons, five eldest sons of 
barons, and fifty gentlemen, knights of lineage and distinction, 
were among the slain. All the ordnance, consisting of seven- 
teen brass pieces, " the best fashioned, with the smallest touch- 
holes, and the finest for their length and calibre," according to 
the lord admiral's statement * " which he had ever seen," fell 
into the hands of the conquerors, and among them " seven ex- 
traordinary fair culverins,f called the seven sisters." 
^Oa the receipt of this news, which, it appears, was brought 

♦Letter of Lord Thomas Howard, preserved in the Herald's office. Pinkerton, 
Appendix., vol. ii., 456. Quoted by Lingard, vi., 25. 
t Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 41. 



CAPITULATION OF TOURNAY. 81 

to him on the very day in which Tournay capitulated, Henry 
either felt, or affected to feel, compassion and regret for his 
brother-in-law, no less than satisfaction at the success of his 
arms, and the safety of his kingdom; "It put him in mind," 
says Lord Herbert, " of the vicissitude of all earthly things." 
Nevertheless, he caused the Te Deum to be performed ; and 
the Bishop of Rochester preached before him, laying the whole 
blame of the late occurrences on the unhappy James, who un- 
doubtedly had atoned for his false policy with his blood, though, 
for a long time, his subjects believed that he had escaped from 
the carnage of the field, and, according to one legend, betaken 
himself to the Holy Land, while another, equally unfounded, 
asserts that he was murdered in Home Castle, after the battle. 

With the siege of Tournay the active operations of this cam- 
paign ended ; for on the real cooperation of Ferdinand no re- 
liance was to be placed ; and the Swiss had suffered them- 
selves to be deceived into a separate negotiation with La Tre- 
mouille, governor of Burgundy ; who, having no authority to 
treat, and knowing well that Louis would disavow all his pro- 
ceedings, cared not what terms he promised, so that he could 
purchase their retreat. 

It was determined by the council, in which Wolsey is said 
to have played the principal part, that, notwithstanding its dis- 
tance from the English frontier, and the difficulty, not to say 
impossibility, of supporting it, Tournay should be retained 
and garrisoned — and this, though, among the reasons given for 
dismantling Terouenne, the very arguments were adduced, 
which did apply to Tournay, although not to the place in ques- 
tion. The whole case of Wolsey is, however, involved in so 
much difficulty by the furious animosities of the times, and the 
manifest partiality of all the writers, pro or con, who have 
L* 6 



82 POLICY OF WOLSEY. 

treated of his extraordinary career, that it is necessary to use 
the utmost discretion before pronouncing judgment on his 
measures. In this case, he had certainly private interests to 
be served ; and no part of his career shows him superior to 
these, as personal aggrandizement and the means of personal 
splendor and ostentation seem to have been hardly less his ob- 
jects than the advancement of the monarch, and the extension 
of the church, to which he belonged. 

Tournay was a city, even then, of eighty thousand inhabi- 
tants, one of the richest in Europe ; it was also the seat of a 
wealthy bishopric, and to this, with the consent of the pope, 
"Wolsey was incontinently advanced. It may be that this was 
the cause of his advocating the retention of the city ; it may 
be, however, that it was only his reward. For Henry was 
himself desirous of retaining the trophy of his expensive and 
showy campaign, and the emperor would of course support his 
arguments. The whole policy of Wolsey, from the beginning 
to the end of his career, was founded on the maintenance of the 
balance of European power between the emperor of Germany 
and the king of France, and the preserving to England the post 
of arbiter between the two. 

However well conceived, his plan, nevertheless, was not 
well carried out ; as he was constantly vacillating between 
the two powers, as the fortunes of either seemed to ascend in 
the scale ; so that, constantly involving his country in dam- 
aging and expensive alliances, he materially aided neither party, 
and but partially attained the object at which he aimed, at the 
expense of men, money, and consistency ; when, by a resolute 
attitude and inflexible policy, he might probably have preserved 
the peace of Europe without striking a blow. 

Still, for the time, his policy was sincere ; and, being at this 



FESTIVITIES AT TOURNAY AND LISLE. 83 

moment engaged wholly on the imperial or Spanish side of the 
question, he probably believed in the force of the arguments 
which he produced, These were, in brief, that, by razing the 
defences of Terouenne, he had made the emperor his fast friend 
forever — that it must ever be the policy of that prince to keep 
Tournay out of the hands of France, so that he was bound 
both by interest and policy to support its garrison, as against 
a coup de main of the French. On the other side, should a 
rupture occur with Spain, France, he argued, would of neces- 
cessity become the ally of England, and would necessarily prefer, 
also, to see Tournay an English rather than a Spanish garrison. 
Arguments are easily found, when it is desirable to find 
them ; and he who desires to be convinced is not hard of con- 
viction. The entry of the victors into Tournay was celebra- 
ted by festivities of all kinds, the most fanciful and gorgeous. 
Margaret of Burgundy was invited, with her ladies, and Prince 
Charles of Castille, to share the king's hospitality, in requital 
of that she had extended to him at Lisle. A contract of mar- 
riage had existed between Charles and Henry's beautiful sister, 
Mary, since the time of the late king, although the bridegroom 
was several years younger than the lovely lady ; and this 
match was, for the present, farther confirmed between them ; 
while, at the same time, overtures were made for a union be- 
tween the gay and gallant Charles Brandon, Lord Lisle, the 
king's especial favorite, and the Princess Margaret ; " which, 
though it took no effect, was not yet without much demonstra- 
tion of outward grace and favor on her part."* In honor of 
the princess and her ladies, who were right royally entertained, 
for many days in succession, the king and emperor, as associ- 
ates, did hold a solemn justs against all comers, which they 

*Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 3T. 



84 NEGOTIATIONS AT TOURNAY. 

performed valiantly and successfully ; and on the return of the 
ladies, the royal hosts became in turn the guests, accompanying 
their fair inviters back to Lisle. There the Princess Margaret 
" caused a justs to be held in an extraordinary manner, the 
place being a large room, raised high from the ground by 
many steps, and paved with black, square stones like marble ; 
while the horses, to prevent noise or sliding, were shod with 
felt or flocks ; after which the lords and ladies danced all 
night."* 

These jollities, however, as they are termed by the noble 
author, quoted above, appear to have had a meaning and pur- 
pose less frivolous than mere amusement or ostentation, being 
in fact devised in order to account for a concourse of illustrious 
persons, and to conceal a scheme of negotiation for the farther 
maintenance of the war. This, it appears, was set on foot by 
Ferdinand of Castille, who had been from the first the chief in- 
stigator of the war, as he had chiefly profited by it ; and who 
now, learning that military operations were at an end for this 
season, sent envoys, Pedro de Orrea, Juan de la Nuca, and 
Gabriel de Orti, to Henry VIII., with commission to treat for 
a league, by which both kings, with the emperor, should enter 
France the next spring. In virtue of this treaty, it was agreed, 
that Ferdinand should invade Guienne, from the kingdom of 
Navarre, with seventeen thousand of his own subjects, to be 
maintained at his own cost, and six thousand Germans at the 
expense of Henry, and that the war should be made in the 
king of England's name, and for the recovery of his patrimony 
of Guienne. On the other side, Henry, assisted by MaxU 
milian, was bound to attack Normandy or Picardy with twenty 
thousand men ; and the pope, the prince, the archduke, the 

*Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 3T. 



SIGNING OP THE LEAGUE. 85 

Duke of Milan, the Swiss, and the Florentines, were all to be 
invited to join in this common league against the aggressive 
power of France. 

On the 17th of October, this treaty was signed, at Lisle, by 
the Bishop of Winchester and the Marquis of Dorset, for the 
king ; by the Seigneur de Bergues, and Gerard de Pleine, 
president of the council, for the emperor ; and by Pedro de 
Orrea, Don Lewis Carroz, and Juan de la Nuca, for Ferdinand. 
But, notwithstanding the great expectations from this grand 
combination of princes, potentates, and powers, it was found, 
in the end, as is apt to be the case, where many parties are 
united against one, with no connecting link beyond a tempo- 
rary combination of selfish and perhaps really conflicting inter- 
ests, that, for all its stability or real value, this solemn league 
might as well have been engrossed on the sea sand, as on the 
parchment, which was the most enduring portion of the doc 
ument. However, it gave great satisfaction for the moment ; 
and Henry returned, by way of Calais, to his own dominions, 
where he shortly afterward rejoined his queen at Richmond ; 
and there, amid great festivities and rejoicings over his boot- 
less and barren conquests, and great preparations for his in- 
tended campaign of the next spring, he bestowed high honors 
and rewards on those whom he considered to have deserved 
well at his hands during the war. 

To Thomas, earl of Surrey, the victor of Flodden, he re- 
stored the title of Duke of Norfolk, of which his father had 
been deprived, for adherence to Richard III. Lord Thomas 
Howard, his son, was created earl of Surrey ; Sir Charles 
Brandon, earl of Lisle, was raised to the dukedom of Suffolk ; 
while Sir Charles Somerset, who was also Lord Herbert of 
Chepstow, Gower, and Raglan, in right of his wife, Elizabeth, 



86 DISRUPTION OF THE LEAGUE. 

daughter of William Herbert, earl of Huntingdon, was created 
Earl of Worcester ; and Sir Edward Stanley was made Lord 
Mounteagle. Beside this, a great number of gentlemen were 
made knights and bannerets, and Thomas Wolsey, bishop of 
Tournay, was elevated to the diocese of Lincoln. 

. In the course of this winter, however, it was made known 
to the king, by Louis of Orleans, duke of Longueville, who 
was a prisoner in England since the battle of the Spurs, that 
the pope and Ferdinand of Spain had both abandoned the 
league, the former revoking all his former censures against 
France, and the latter consenting to a prolongation of the ex- 
isting armistice for twelve months, as the price of his confirma- 
tion, in permanence, in his title to Navarre. Maximilian was 
also seduced from his fidelity to Henry, by the bribe offered 
to him, in the shape of an offer of Renee, the daughter of Louis 
of France, as wife to Charles of Spain, his grandson — who was 
already betrothed to Henry's youngest sister, Mary — carrying 
with her, as dowry, the cession of the duchy of Milan to Spain 
by the crown of France, which held it by conquest from Lu- 
dovico Sforza, its rightful owner and sovereign. 

The king affected, at first, to doubt the authenticity of the 
French duke's information ; but, if he did really distrust it, 
his hesitations were soon removed by the evasive answers 
which the regency of Flanders returned to his demand, that 
they should now proceed to celebrate the stipulated marriage 
between Charles and Mary. 

Indignant at what he justly considered the falsehood of his 
allies, Henry instantly broke off all connection with the con- 
federates, and, by aid of the Duke of Longueville, speedily 
eame to the closest terms with Louis XII., whose queen, Anne 



WEDDING OF LOUIS XII. AND MARY. 87 

of Bretagne, had lately left him a widower, at the age of fifty- 
three years. 

The binding of this contract was ratified by the hand of 
Mary, the beautiful and blooming sister of Henry ; who, 
though but sixteen years of age, and believed to be in love 
with Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, either yielding to state 
necessity, or seduced by the dazzle of royalty, consented to 
the contract, receiving the same jointure and dowry with the 
late queen of France. She carried to Louis four hundred 
thousand crowns as her portion. Tournay was ceded to En- 
gland, a million of crowns accrued to Henry, as arrears due 
to himself and his father, and Richard de la Pole was ban- 
ished to Metz, with a pension assigned to him by the French 
king. 

Early in September the first ceremonies of the marriage 
were performed by procuration, Louis of Longueville contract- 
ing the marriage per parole de present, under authority from 
the king, and Mary's procuration to the same effect being sent 
to Paris, where the ceremony was solemnly held at the Celes- 
tins, on the fourteenth of the month. In October, she was es- 
corted to the sea shore by Henry and his queen, in person, and 
took ship for Boulogne under the guidance of the Duke of Nor- 
folk, with a splendid retinue and train of attendants, among 
whom the most remarkable were Lady Guilford, whom the 
queen called her mother, and the beautiful mistress Anne Bo- 
leyn, destined in after days to play so considerable and sad a 
part in English history. From Boulogne she was escorted to 
Abbeville, by a great train of the most distinguished persons 
in France, and at that place met her somewhat aged but deeply 
enamored wooer, to whom she was wedded with much splen- 
dor, on St. Deny's day, the ninth of October. 



88 FOREIGN NATIONALITY OF QUEENS CONSORT. 

The ceremony performed, Louis bestowed many splendid 
jewels on the queen, and rich presents on those of her suite ; 
but immediately afterward, somewhat to Mary's discontent, in 
the first instance, though it seems that the attentions of her doting 
husband and the splendid pageantries of Paris soon reconciled 
her, he summarily dismissed all the English in her train, with 
the exception of a few officers and ladies of her personal at- 
tendance, among whom the lovely Anne Boleyn was suffered 
to remain. Lady Guilford he especially discharged, replying 
to the Earl of Worcester's remonstrances, that " his wife was 
of age to take care of herself, and required no longer a gov- 
erness ; " a decision in which Mary appears soon to have coin- 
cided, since we find her shortly afterward declaring herself per- 
fectly content with her Erench servants. Domestically speak- 
ing, Louis was wise in his decision ; and perhaps, since his con- 
duct gave no offence in England, politically also. "Where a 
foreign princess is married into a strange land, it is always de- 
sirable that anything like the maintenance of a distinct and sep 
arate nationality should be avoided. In the first place, inter 
nally, the royal household must be disturbed by the conflicting 
interests, jealousies, and dislikes of two sets of attendants, inev- 
itably falling into rival cliques and seeking national favoritism, 
and probably incapable of comprehending one another fully, 
from difference of language ; while the close intimacy and per- 
fect confidence of the royal persons would naturally be dimin- 
ished, by suspicions instilled by the agency of rival favorites. 
In the second place, the original nationality of queens consort, 
if at all markedly exhibited, is always a source of distrust, sus- 
picion, and, sometimes, hatred against them, to the subjects of 
their husbands. The merest trifle, difference of national cos- 



DISTASTE TO FOREIGN QUEENS. 89 

cumes, creates prejudice, excites ridicule, and begets ill-will in 
the illiterate masses. 

In almost every case of such marriages recorded in history, 
we find the ill effect of the maintenance of such trains in the 
courts into which foreign princesses or princes have been ad- 
mitted, and the happiest instances of such espousals have inva- 
riably been those, in which the person introduced has most en- 
tirely ignored the customs and costumes of the old, and adop- 
ted those of the new country. 

A few striking instances illustrate this fact. In the reign 
of the very king, Henry VIII., of whom I am treating, the cos- 
tumes of the German ladies-in-waiting of Anne of Cleves, exci- 
ted universal ridicule and disgust among the courtiers, and prob- 
ably added not a little to the prejudice of the monarch against 
the " mare of Flanders," as he coarsely and brutally nicknamed 
his virtuous and noble consort. That she, after her divorce, 
held so high a place in the feelings of her former subjects, must 
be attributed — as was seen also in the case of her right royal 
predecessor, Katharine of Arragon— to a total avoidance of all 
distinctions of nationality, and to her having lived, throughout 
her life, in the style, and after the customs, of an English lady 
of rank. 

With the hapless Mary of Scotland, the first bitter preju- 
dice, both of nobles and people, against their beautiful sover- 
eign, which afterward increased into vindictive and almost per- 
sonal animosity, may be traced to the French attendants, 
French manners, French frivolities, and, perhaps it may be 
added, French morals, engrafted by her on the grim auster- 
ity, gloomy decorum, and stiff solemnities of her northern 
court. 

In the reign of England's reproach — the pale, frigid, bloody 



90 THE HOUSES OF Bou^dOjN aND BRUNSWICK. 

Mary — neither her bigoted cruelty, nor the real wrongs in- 
flicted on them by the morose and savage Philip, more enraged 
the groaning English, than the sight of the black-garbed, starch- 
ruffed, stately, unbending cavaliers, the Spanish hose and long 
rapiers of the whiskered matadoros, the bare feet and cowled 
heads of the tonsured friars, and the Romish pomp of the 
proud, austere prelates, who had followed him from the land 
of the Inquisition. 

No one of the unhappy English Stuarts but suffered from 
the same cause. Henrietta Maria, though she was daughter 
of the good and great Henry IV., subject of so much English 
sympathy, never conciliated the favor of her unhappy husband's 
people ; she was, to the mass of the people, ever the French- 
woman, and, to the stricter Puritans, the painted Jezabel of 
Paris. In the time of his loose, licentious son, Charles II., the 
brown Portuguese waiting women, with their foreign farthing- 
ales and sevenfold vertugardins, more even than her barefoot 
confessor, rendered the people indifferent, if not actually hos- 
tile, to his ill-treated queen, Katharine of Braganza. 

Nor, while speaking of this topic, though incidentally, can 
one fail to recall to mind the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, 
against whom the furies of revolutionary France, and the vo- 
cabulary of republican abuse could invent no reproach more 
odious, no cry more stimulating to the passions of the rabble, 
than the national denunciation, u a has VAutrichienne " — down 
with the Austrian woman ! In like manner, with princes; 
the Dutch guards, the Schiedam schnapps, and the Middle- 
burgh tobacco of William the Third, the great prince of Or- 
ange, though he had crossed over from Holland at their own 
invitation, and restored to them their liberty and religion, long 



THE HOUSES OF BOURBON AND BRUNSWICK. 91 

preserved a hostile prejudice among his people against that 
great and Protestant king. 

The house of Brunswick, never, until the accession of George 
IV., who, undoubtedly, was the least worthy of his line, but 
who had this advantage over all his predecessors, that he was 
the first thoroughly English prince of the family, had com- 
pletely overcome the offence given to the nation by the pre- 
ference of German nobles in attendance, German preceptors 
and governesses in the royal nurseries, German grooms, and 
even German horses, in the stable, to natives of the unmixed 
breed. 

Even in the present most prosperous and most popular reign, 
in spite of the deep and enthusiastic attachment of the whole na- 
tion to their beloved queen, in spite of the great caution and 
prudence which he has exhibited in his whole career, and his 
total avoidance of foreign favoritism, that almost universal er- 
ror of alien princes, the slightest suspicion of Germanism, even 
in the shape of a soldier's hat, or the adjustment of his cross- 
belts, much more in the conduct of a war, has sufficed to raise 
against the unobtrusive consort a burst of ridicule or a storm 
of obloquy. It appears, however, that in this instance, though 
they might not improperly have taken some umbrage at the 
summary proceeding of Louis XII., and though it would have 
been clearly characteristic of Henry's temper to do so, no of- 
fence arose from the course adopted by the French king, as is 
rendered clearly evident by the circumstances which followed 
shortly afterward, and which I quote from the history of Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury, himself an enthusiast and champion in 
exercises such as he describes. 

"Francis de Valois, duke of Angouleme, and next heir 



92 THE JUSTS AT PARIS. 

male to the crown, having in May before married Cloud,* 
eldest daughter of Louis XII., by Anne, who was inheritrix of 
Bretagne, desired now in the king's declining age to give some 
proof of his valor. Therefore, before the English departed 
from Abbeville, he caused a justs to be proclaimed ; which, 
for being so extraordinary- — the persons and manner considered 
— I thought worth the relating. The effect thereof was that, 
in November ensuing, he with nine aids, would answer all 
comers, that were gentlemen of name and arms, on horseback 
and on foot. The laws on horseback were, that with sharp 
spears they should run five courses at tilt, and five more at 
random, being well armed and covered with pieces of advan- 
tage for their best defence. After this to fight twelve strokes 
with sharp swords. This being done, he and his aids offered 
to fight at barriers with a handspear and sword. The condi- 
tions were that if any man were unhorsed, or felled fighting 
on foot, his armor and horse should be rendered to the officer 
of arms. 

" That for this purpose an arch triumphant should be set 
forth at the Tournelles, near the street St. Antoine, in Paris, 
on which four shields should be placed. That he who touched 
the first, which was silver, should run at tilt, according to the 
articles. Who touched the golden shield should run at random. 
He that touched the black shield should fight on foot with 
handspears and swords for the one hand ; six foins with the 
handspear, and then eight strokes to the most advantage, if 
the sword so long held, and after that twelve strokes with the 
sword. He that touched the tawney shield should cast a spear 
on foot with a target on his arm, and after fight with a two- 

* Claude, the eldest daughter of Louis, by Anne of Brittany, who destined her to 
the Archduke Charles. — Mennechei, Hist. France, it 82. 



THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK. 93 

handed sword. This proclamation being made, the Duke of 
Suffolk, and Marquis of Dorset, and his four brethren, the Lord 
Clinton, Sir Edward Neville, Sir Giles Capell, Thomas Cheyney, 
and others, obtained leave of the king to be at the challenge ; 
which they so hastened, that before the end of October they 
came to St. Denys, where they found the queen, the so- 
lemnities for her coronation, as also for her reception at 
Paris, being not yet in readiness. Francis de Valois knowing 
how good men-at-arms the Duke of Suffolk and Marquis of 
Dorset were, requested them to be two of his aids, to which 
they assented. But while these things were in preparing, 
Mary, the French queen, was, upon the fifth of November, 
crowned in St. Denys, the Earl of Worcester and Dr. West, 
who were appointed for this purpose by our king, attending at 
the solemnity thereof, and Francis de Valois, afterward king, 
holding the crown, which was very weighty, over her head. 
The day following she entered Paris with great pomp, and the 
morrow after, the justs begun, of which the king and queen 
were both spectators, the king being yet so weak that he lay 
on a couch. These justs continued three days, in which three 
hundred and five men-at-arms were answered by the defend- 
ants, among which some were so hurt that they died not long 
after. At Random and Tournay, the Duke of Suffolk hurt a 
gentleman very dangerously, and the Marquis of Dorset did 
no less. Then the duke overthrew a man, both horse and 
arms, and so did the marquis. Francis, at last being hurt, 
desires the duke and marquis to fight at barriers, who there- 
fore took the first place against all comers. In the meanwhile, 
Francis, intending an affront, as was thought, to the duke, 
causeth a German, the strongest person in all the court, to be 
armed secretly, and present himself at the barriers ; they both 



94 THE DEATH OF KING LOUIS. 

did well ; yet the duke, at the last, with the butt end of his 
spear struck the German till he staggered, and so the rail was 
let fall. The Marquis of Dorset also foiled another French- 
man. Then they took some breath, and returned to fight again, 
when the duke so pommelled the German about the head, that 
blood gushed from his nose, which being done the German was 
conveyed away secretly. Divers other brave feats were done 
likewise, which the reader may find elsewhere. At last our 
English, with singular honor, returned to their king and mas- 
ter, whom they found much comforted for the birth of another 
prince, though not living long after."* 

Such were the fierce and dangerous sports in which our An- 
glo-Norman ancestors rejoiced, which were not deemed too 
sanguinary or too cruel for the entertainment of fair and gen- 
tle ladies, and in which Henry himself took especial pride and 
pleasure. 

Great and extraordinary, however, as were the rejoicings at 
this royal marriage, and sumptuous as were the entertainments 
which followed Mary's elevation to her royal state, she was 
not destined long to enjoy them. Perhaps, had the revelries 
been less lasting and superb, the state might have endured the 
longer ; for the king, a confirmed valetudinarian, and a martyr 
to the gout, declined rapidly under the effect of banqueting, 
late hours, and suppers, after grand court balls, protracted un 
til midnight. He was so anxious to please his gay and beau- 
tiful bride, says an old writer, f " that he changed all his habi- 
tudes of life ; for, whereas he had been used to dine at eight 
o'clock, he agreed to put off dinner until noon, and whereas he 
used to retire to bed at six o'clock in the evening, he now often 
sat up until midnight." 

* Herbert of Cherbury, 48. t Hist, de Bayard, apud Henault, 423. 



THE YOUTHFUL WIDOW. 95 

At what hour the good king Louis had been wont to break- 
fast, when it was his habit to dine at eight o'clock in the morn- 
ing, does not appear ; but one cannot but smile at the idea of 
a man of fifty-three, certainly not a very advanced age, suffer- 
ing seriously from the fact of his deferring his dinner hour un- 
til noon. In truth, however, it is the name, rather than either 
the quality, or the hour, of the midday and evening meals, rel- 
atively considered, that has changed, from the sixteenth to the 
nineteenth century, so far as regards the upper classes in Eu- 
rope and America. Then, the dinner was a secondary meal, 
served usually between the hours of eleven and one, breakfast 
having been taken at five or six ; while supper, which was the 
grand solid affair of the day, came on the board from six to 
eight o'clock of the evening, corresponding almost exactly to 
the usual luncheon and dinner hours of the modern fashionable 
world. 

Be that, however, as it may, greatly to the grief of his wor- 
thy Parisians, but considerably, one would say from what fol- 
lowed, to the satisfaction of his fair young widow, the good 
King Louis died, within three months after his marriage ; 
whether in consequence of indigestion from his late meridian 
dinners, or from other causes, may be held doubtful. Francis 
of Valois, duke of Angouleme, his next heir of blood, and hus- 
band of his eldest daughter, Claude, succeeded him ; and Ma- 
ry's former lover, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, having 
been sent to Paris by Henry with a message of condolence, 
was persuaded, between the blandishment of his lady love, and 
the encouragement of Francis, who had reason to apprehend 
that she would be given in second marriage to the Archduke 
Charles, to i-isk the anger of his lord and master, by espousing 
his fair sister, without awaiting the ceremony of asking his con- 



96 SECOND MARRIAGE OE MARY. 

sent. It is said, that the amorous widow, taking advantage 
of her high rank, adopted the privilege, which is said to belong 
to the whole sex, in leap year, and asked her lover, " if he 
dared, without farther reflection, to marry a queen," assuring 
him, at the same time, that her brother would far more readily 
pardon them for anticipating his sanction, than for acting in de- 
fiance of it. The gentleman said " Yes," and they were wed- 
ded secretly in Paris. Nor were Mary's anticipations incor- 
rect, if indeed the whole matter were not prearranged, which 
seems probable ; since Wolsey, it is known, was privy to the 
scheme, and neither attempted to oppose, nor yet divulged it 
to Henry. That monarch probably felt that, as both parties 
were out of reach of his authority, he could not prevent their 
union ; and preferred pardoning, to allowing, his sister's ill-as- 
sorted marriage with a subject. It may be added, moreover, 
that in those times the intermarriage of royal houses with their 
own subjects of the feudal aristocracy was not unusual, and that 
Suffolk himself was, up to this time, Henry's especial favorite 
and companion. 

About the same time, the other sister of the English king, 
Margaret, who likewise had been left a widow, and queen re- 
gent of Scotland, by the death of James IV. on Flodden field, 
also married a noble from her own subjects, the Earl of An- 
gus ; although she thereby forfeited the regency, which was 
left to her on the express condition that she should not re- 
marry, and was shortly afterward compelled to take refuge 
with her husband, though she failed to bring off her youthful 
sons, at the court of her brother, in consequence whereof, su- 
peradded to the recall of the Duke of Albany, a prince totally 
in the interests of the French king, and his promotion to the 



MISTRESS ANNE BOLEYN. 97 

regency, war was, not long afterward, rekindled between the 
bordering nations. 

In the meantime, the queen dowager of France, with her 
splendid husband, and all the train which had escorted her to 
France, returned to their native land, with the exception of 
Mistress Anne Boleyn, who was appointed maid of honor to 
the French queen, Claude ; and perhaps of Mistress Jane Sey- 
mour also, although her name is not recorded as having fol- 
lowed Mary of England to France, who also figured, nearly at 
the same time, as maid of honor to the same royal lady — a 
fact which is established by the existence, in the gallery of the 
Louvre, of portraits of these two celebrated beauties, by the 
no less celebrated Hans Holbein. 

Shortly after Mary's return, she and her husband received 
Henry's formal pardon, and were publicly married in his pres- 
ence at Greenwich ; Suffolk did not, however, continue long to 
engross the favor of Henry, but soon afterward, disgusted by 
the overweening growth and overbearing audacity of Wolsey, 
retired to his country-seat, at the same time with Warham, 
the archbishop of Canterbury and ex-chancellor, Fox, bishop 
of Winchester, and. the noble Duke of Norfolk. 

For, from this moment, never did any subject ascend so 
rapidly in his monarch's favor, or obtain so vast an ascendency 
both in favor and wealth, as this obscure and low-born priest, 
partly, it must be admitted, through his administrative and 
diplomatic talents, but far more by his rare tact, his shrewd- 
ness in intrigue, and his dexterity in administering to the pas- 
sions, prompting the will, and conciliating the unstable affec- 
tions of the fickle king. 

After his return from France, where he had been made 
bishop of Tournay, we have seen him raised to the see of Lin- 
E 7 



98 WOLSEY ARCHBISHOP. 

coin, he was now successively created Bishop of Bath, Durham 
and Worcester, and Archbishop of York, if not holding the 
titles, at least enjoying the revenues of all at once, in addition 
to the abbacy of St. Albans, which he held in commendam, 
and the tithes of the bishoprics of Hereford and Winchester, 
and other ecclesiastical preferments. On the resignation of 
William Warham, as chancellor, he received that place, after 
obtaining from Leo X. the cardinal priestship of St." Cicely 
beyond the Tiber, by which that pontiff hoped to secure his 
influence over the king, his master, and subsequently the ap- 
pointment of legate a latere, by which he held the right of vis- 
iting, which carried with it the power of suspension, confisca- 
tion, and imprisonment, all the ecclesiastical establishments in 
England. 

" Thus," says the author I have so often quoted, " were dig- 
nities and wealth heaped so fast on Wolsey, that, being in his 
nature insolent, he grew at length intolerable. Neither could 
those excellent parts with which he was endowed exempt him ; 
insomuch that not only much arrogance, but extreme vanity, 
was observed in him ; whereas yet nothing commends church- 
men so much as a pious modesty ; all degrees of persons, but 
especially theirs, being like coins or medals, to which howso- 
ever virtue gives the stamp and impression, humility must give 
the weight. Yet this cardinal, contrary to all example, is no- 
ted by Polydore, to have used silk and gold in his outward 
vestments, and even saddles. He caused also the cardinal's 
hat to be borne, by some principal person, before him, on a 
great height, like some consecrated idol, and when he came to 
the king's chapel, would admit no place to rest it on but the 
very altar ; he had besides his serjeant-at-arms and mace, and 
two gentlemen carrying two pillars of silver, beside his cross- 



CHARACTER OF WOLSEY. 99 

bearer, concerning which it is observed, that he did bear the 
cross of York, somewhat to the prejudice of that of Canterbury, 
which perchance might be some discontentment to the Arch- 
bishop Warham. In conclusion, all his actions argued a 
haughtier spirit than could become his place." 

Though there is doubtless much truth in the reports of Wol- 
sey's arrogance, it must be remembered that Polydore Virgil 
was, for especial cause, his bitter enemy, having been thrown 
into the tower by his orders ; while it is admitted that " a 
strict administration of justice took place during his enjoyment 
of his office ; and no chancellor ever discovered greater impar- 
tiality in his decisions, deeper penetration of judgment, or 
more enlarged knowledge of law and equity."* It cannot be 
denied that the country was tranquil and sufficiently well- 
governed at home ; that he caused it to be respected abroad, 
and that, if his foreign policy in some degree lacked consist- 
ency, vacillating between French and Spanish interests, it was 
that he, the first, conceived the idea of preserving an equilib- 
rium between the greater powers, and that he could not have 
sided uniformly with one, or maintained an unbroken alliance 
with either of two princes so puissant, so ambitious, and so 
unscrupulous as Charles V. and Francis I., without giving to 
one a supremacy, dangerous alike to his country and to the 
world. He was a liberal and munificent protector of letters, 
a powerful patron of the arts ; he had a noble taste in architec- 
ture, which he bounteously promoted, having built at his own 
cost, and ifc is said from his own designs, the chaste and splen- 
did palace of Hampton Court, which he afterward presented to 
the king, his master, fully furnished in a style of princely mu- 
nificence — the most noble gift ever bestowed by a subject on 

*Sir Thomas More, quoted by Hume; vol. iii. 109, from Stowe, p. 504. 



100 FOREIGN POLICY OF WOLSET. 

a crowned head. If he were grasping of wealth, it was to spend 
it in lordly lavishness, prompting all the arts of industry and 
civilization, not to hoard it in avaricious coffers, or bestow it 
on unworthy favorites. 

He has been accused of encouraging Henry to extravagance, 
and discouraging him from business, in order to have the 
greater hold on him, as being the more necessary both to his 
pleasures and his councils ; but I can discover no shadow of 
foundation for the charge. 

He has been accused of influencing his master, at divers 
times, to different lines of policy, for the convenience of his 
own ambitious schemes, not for the interests of England; Thus 
the conquest and retention of Tournay, an impolitic measure, 
certainly, and a possession useless and expensive to England, 
which must-needs be a source of constant irritation to France, 
has been laid to his charge, for purposes of self-aggrandize- 
ment. But, in his age, the impolicy of maintaining such places, 
in the heart of hostile countries, was little understood ; the na- 
tional pride was enlisted in their retention, and the surrenders 
of Tournay, Calais, and Dunkirk, in after days, were in no de- 
gree less obnoxious to the patriotic feeling of the time, than 
would be now the proposal to deliver up the rock of Gib- 
raltar to Spain, or the heights of Abraham to the United States 
of America. 

Moreover, I find that the cardinal is charged equally with 
obedience to self-interest when he advised the restoration of 
the same fortress to France, in shape of a dowry for the infant 
princess, Mary, on her betrothal to the infant dauphin, in consid- 
eration of the payment to Henry of six hundred thousand crowns 
by Francis — certainly an ample remuneration for the cession of 
a fortress to retain which was both a dead loss and a decided 



BATTLE OF MARIGNANO. 101 

danger — as when he counselled its retention. One of these 
charges, therefore, frustrates the other ; and weighing all sides 
of the question, I cannot but conclude that, on the whole, Wol- 
sey's foreign policy was honest, beneficial to the world at 
large, and thoroughly English. Perhaps, by carrying a higher 
hand, he might have enforced peace between the emperor and 
the king, but it would have been at the expense, if not of a re- 
sort to actual warfare, at least of an armed neutrality, while 
by the course he did pursue, he lost, so far as I can see, no val- 
uable possession, and certainly no honor, to his country, which 
never held a higher place on the continent, than while it was 
under his high and haughty rule. 

To his influence over Henry's councils, it is certainly to be 
ascribed that by conciliating Francis, so long as conciliation 
was possible, that warlike king was prevented from creating 
a powerful diversion in the sister kingdom, by lending armed 
assistance to the regent, Albany. To his influence it must be 
ascribed that conciliation ceased, and the force of England 
leaned toward Maximilian, after the bloody battle of Marignano, 
which, after lasting two entire days, and costing forty thousand 
lives, opened the whole of the Milanese to the French victor, 
and of which the old marechal, Trivulsio, who had fought in 
eighteen pitched battles, declared that all other actions he had 
seen were but child's play, — this a combat of heroes. To his 
influence, above all, it may be attributed that Henry declined 
the investiture of that fair Italian duchy, and the imperial 
crown of Germany, which he was to receive at the hands of 
the sovereign pontiff, Maximilian resigning it in his favor — 
than which magnificent and dazzling offer, had it been accepted, 
nothing can be imagined more disastrous, more fatal to the in- 
terests of England. 



102 RESTITUTION OF TOURNAY. 

Shortly after this occurrence, alarmed at the vast coalitions 
which seemed on the point of forming against him, Francis 
showed signs of returning moderation. The consent of the 
Swiss confederacy to his occupation of the Milanese, was won 
by vast sums of money, always said, with truth or untruth, to 
be too effective on the Helvetic mind. Charles of Austria was 
purchased by the offer of the hand of the infant princess, Lou- 
isa, with the rights of the house of Anjou to the crown of Na- 
ples, for her dowry. Maximilian was convinced by the same 
argument, which had proved so conclusive with the stout Swit- 
zers. Henry alone remained stubborn and offended ; and 
Francis was aware that he had not only subsidized his enemies, 
but had actually concluded a secret treaty with the emperor 
and the king of Spain, against him. 

About this time, however, Selim the Magnificent, emperor 
of the Turks, having overrun Egypt, Syria, and threatening 
destruction to the very name of Christendom, the pope, of his 
own authority, proclaimed a peace, which should continue for 
the space of five years, between all Christian powers and 
princes, and sent legates to induce all the potentates of Chris- 
tendom to combine against the Turk. 

This device succeeded ; a confederation was formed of the 
emperor, the pope, and the kings of France, Spain, and En- 
gland, by which they were all bound to interaid and protect 
one another ; and, whenever the territories of one should be 
invaded, whether by one of the confederates or not, all to take 
up arms in defence of the injured party, nor to depose them 
until justice should be done. It was to remove the last chance 
of offence that restitution of Tournay was made, on the condi- 
tions above stated, and that the little Princess Mary was con- 



GENERAL PACIFICATION. 103 

tracted to the dauphin of France, who being newly born, was 
just four years her junior. 

" Thus," says Lingard, " after ten years of war and negotia- 
tion, of bloodshed and perfidy, were all the parties reestab- 
lished in the same situation, in which they had stood previ- 
ously to the league of Carabray, with the exception of the un- 
fortunate, and perhaps unoffending king of Navarre, whose ter- 
ritories on the south of the Pyrenees could not be recovered 
from the unrelenting grasp of Spain."* 

This peace, which is known historically as the general paci- 
fication, was ratified on the 2d of October, 1518, and, by it, as 
Lingard has justly observed, no one was a loser, except the 
unhappy Jean d'Albret, the dispossessed king of Navarre. He 
might have added, no one was a gainer by it, except Thomas 
Wolsey, who, from an obscure priest, son of an inconsiderable 
burgher of Ipswich, some say of a butcher, had grown to be 
archbishop of York, lord high chancellor of England, a cardi- 
nal prince of Rome, legate a latere, and the richest subject in 
the world ; drawing his more than royal revenues not only 
from nearly one-tenth of the bishoprics, abbacies, and wealth- 
iest churches of England, but from the coffers of France, which 
pensioned him in compensation for his see of Tournay, and 
from the rich bishoprics of Toledo and Paleneia, in Spain, 
which Ferdinand had conferred on him, in guerdon of his ser- 
vices, in bringing about the general pacification. 

His establishment consisted of eight hundred individuals, 
earls, knights, and gentlemen of high lineage; his splendor and 
pomp were scarce surpassed by those of royalty itself. From 
this time forth, " on solemn fast days he would say mass after 
the manner of the pope himself; not only bishops and abbots 

* Lingard, vol. vi. p. 40. 



104 POWER OF WOLSEY. 

serving him therein, but even dukes and earls giving him water 
and the towel. Besides, not contented with the cross of York 
to be carried before him, he added another of his legacy, which 
two of the tallest priests that could be found, carried on great 
horses before him. Insomuch, that it grew to a jest, as if one 
cross might not suffice for the expiation of his sins."* Never, 
perhaps, before or since, had any subject risen in so short a 
time to such preferment, wealth, preeminence, and power ; 
never, in after days, did one fall more lamentably. We have 
seen the splendor of his ascension ; the next act, in the drama 
of the master's life, is the superb servant's downfall and disgrace. 

* Herbert of Chertrary, fol. 72. 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE GENERAL PACIFCATION, 1518, TO THE DIVORCE OE 
KATHARINE, 1533. 

With the general pacification closes the first scene of Henry's 
strange and varied character. Up to this period, we have seen 
him a rash, vain, luxurious, headstrong, and somewhat self- 
willed prince ; but nothing had yet shown itself in his disposi- 
tion which indicated the obstinate and brutal tyranny, or the 
merciless love of blood, which hereafter grew upon him, till 
they became his most distinctive attributes. Except in the 
executions of Empson and Dudley, the guilt of which, perhaps, 
belong rather to his council than to himself, and that of Ed- 
mund de la Pole, who was a victim, rather to state policy and 
to the late king's maxims, than to any sanguinary humor of the 
present prince, hardly any blood had been spilled judicially in 
England, since Henry's accession. After a somewhat formi- 
dable rising of the London apprentices, but one life had been 
sacrificed to the law, that of a notorious ringleader ; and, in all 
respects, his reign thus far would compare favorably with that 
of any one of his predecessors. But now the influences had 
begun to affect him, which soon converted him into a savage 
and brutal tyrant, void equally of justice, gratitude, or mercy. 
From this point the declension of his character commences, 
and the decline is lamentably rapid. 
E* 



106 henry's mistresses. 

On his return from the continent, Henry appears to have 
abandoned himself entirely to luxury and pleasure, leaving the 
reins of government given up to the hands of his minister ; 
and it was at this time, probably, that he first displayed the 
germs of that furious and ungovernable lust and licentiousness, 
which increased on him in his latter years, until they became 
a disease, if not a madness. 

Though she had been beautiful and majestic when she was 
first wedded to him, Katharine was eight years Henry's senior; 
her health seems to have been delicate from the beginning, 
none of her children surviving many months, with the excep- 
tion of the Princess Mary, who was subject from her childhood 
to violent attacks of constitutional and probably neuralgic head- 
aches ; her beauty soon faded, and, though she retained to the 
last so much of respect and esteem as Henry was capable of 
feeling toward any woman, she had already lost all hold on his 
passions, which seem to have been his nearest sentiment to 
love or affection. It is not in my plan, in this sketch of the 
king, to touch any more on his conduct toward his several con- 
sorts and the circumstances connected with them, than is ne- 
cessary, in order to keep the thread of his life unbroken. It 
must be observed, however, that it was in this year that, so 
far as we can ascertain, his intercourse commenced with the 
first of the royal mistresses, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John 
Blount, and relict of Sir Gilbert Taillebois, by whom he had 
a son, Henry Eitzroy, afterward earl of Nottingham, duke of 
Richmond, admiral of England,* warden of the Scottish marches, 
and lieutenant of Ireland. To this boy he was fondly and 
proudly attached ; and it was even suspected, that, had he 
lived, his legitimate daughter might have been set aside from 

* Lingard, vi. 110, quoting from Cardinal Pole, g 76, 77. 



DEATH OF MAXIMILIAN. 107 

her rightful succession, to make way for a male, if base-born, 
successor. He died, however, in the year 1536, in the eight- 
eenth year of his age, having, young as he was, long survived 
his mother's influence over his father's fickle humor. Eliza- 
beth Taillebois was soon succeeded, in her empire over his 
faithless fancy, by Mary, the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, 
the elder sister of Anne, his unfortunate second queen, and the 
granddaughter of Thomas, duke of Norfolk. This lady reigned, 
it would seem, paramount over her royal lover, for a longer 
period than any other of his wives, or mistresses, for whom 
his passion seems ever to have been as short lived as it was 
furious and beyond control. It was, however, her fate to be 
deserted in her turn, though the king provided her with a hus- 
band, when he wearied of her ; and it was said that her fate 
proved a useful lesson to her sister Anne, when the king courted 
her, likewise, to illicit love. Though wherein the lesson proved 
useful to poor Anne seems somewhat doubtful ; since one 
scarcely sees what could have befallen her worse than to die, 
with a decapitated body and a blighted reputation, even if she 
had, become rather his mistress, as Katharine Parr, the last 
and most fortunate of his queens, declared to himself it was 
better to be, than his wife. 

In the following year, Maximilian of Germany died ; and, 
the splendid diadem of the empire becoming a prize for the 
most fortunate candidate, Francis of France, and Charles of 
Austria, plunged into the rivalry, with an intensity of ambi- 
tion, although at first under the forms of amicable competition, 
which too surely portended the more violent strife, into which it 
was afterward destined to conduct them. Henry, excited by 
a like lust of glory for a while, proposed himself as a rival in 
the race to these great princes, but learning speedily from Pace, 



108 CANDIDATES FOR EMPIRE. 

his envoy, that he was too late in the field, a large majority of 
the electors being already preengaged to one or other of the 
two competitors, he withdrew from the contest, directing his 
agent if possible to secure the election of a native prince rather 
than that of either Charles or Francis ; but, should he find that 
impossible, to throw his whole influence into the scale of 
Charles, who, having succeeded to the rich inheritance of the 
Netherlands, ha right of his father, Philip, had on the death of 
Ferdinand obtained the throne of Spain, in right of his mother, 
Juana,* daughter of that king by Isabella of Castille. Wolsey, 
it appears, was satisfied, from the first, of the impolicy, as well 
as the impossibility, of obtaining the imperial crown for his 
master ; but, until after the event, when he learned the enor- 
mous sums which it had cost Charles to purchase it of the 
electors, on which he said he was " right glad " he had not suc- 
ceeded, Henry would hear no reason. "Whether it would not 
have been the truer policy of England to support the claims 
of the French in lieu of those of the Spanish king, is, perhaps, 
doubtful. Both monarchs were equally ambitious ; if either 
the more so, it was not Charles, whose relationship to Katha- 
rine of Arragon, his maternal aunt, might, also, be considered 
as a cause for viewing his operations with less suspicion than 
those of his rival. Yet the immense power arising from the 
concentration in his hands of the kingdom of Spain, the duchy 
of Burgundy, the Netherlands, and the empire, might perhaps 
have been regarded as more formidable than the accession of 
strength which Francis would have gained by his election. 
The truth, however, appears to be this, that the moment Henry 
resigned his pretensions to procuring the imperial diadem, he 
returned to his original design of reconquering Anjou, Nor- 

* Lingard, vi. 45. 



MANAGEMENT OF HENRY AND HIS MINISTER. 109 

mandy, and Guienne, those ancient appanages of his house ; if 
he did not conceive the project of conquering the crown of 
France itself — ideas to which he clung with his wonted perti- 
nacity. His whole after-conduct toward his "well-beloved 
brother," Francis, was marked by a deep duplicity that one 
would scarce hold compatible with his furious, irritable, and jeal- 
ous rashness, were it not a characteristic of his whole career. He 
was at least as sudden, treacherous, close, and secret as he was 
fickle, cruel, and capricious, ■ yet at the same time obstinate, 
and, where his purpose was set, of iron will. In conclusion, 
the apology made by the cardinal to Francis and by him ac- 
cepted, to the end that England would not have supported 
Charles, had it been possible successfully to oppose him, had 
in itself thus much at least of truth, that her opposition would 
have bitterly irritated Charles, while availing Francis nothing. 
Thus far, therefore, it is not easy to see how Henry or his min- 
ister could have managed their continental policy better than 
they did ; even if it be admitted that they were in some de- 
gree influenced by that ancient rivalry and hostility between 
the two nations, which, arising from the growth of circum- 
stances, fomented by centuries of strife, had come to be re- 
garded as a principle of nature, and as the inevitable conse- 
quence of their juxtaposition and their greatness. From this 
moment it became the object of both the king and the empe- 
ror to court Henry, and conciliate him, so far at the least as to 
secure his neutrality, if not his assistance, in case of the rup- 
ture, which both foresaw, and which Francis probably intended. 
The latter prince, to this intent, proposed that the meeting, 
for which provision had been made in the treaty, of the two 
kings, on the frontiers of their dominions, should take place 
forthwith ; and Henry, delighting in such an occasion for pa- 



110 CONFERENCE OF KINGS. 

geantiy and splendor, with the full concurrence of Wolsey, 
himself in no sort averse to it, immediately assented. 

This led to the celeorated conference, held within the con- 
fines of the English district, or pale, as it was called, of Calais, 
so far renowned in legend and romance, no less than in the so- 
ber page of history, as the Field of Cloth of Gold. 

For this feast of kings preparations were made which exceed 
belief, exceed even imagination ; nobles and princes mortgaged 
their estates, sold or pawned their ancestral plate, nay, dispos- 
sessed themselves of feudal droicts, and even such of their lands 
as were unentailed, that they might go brave to that grand 
show of bravery, of vanity of vanities. Proclamation was 
made in every court of Europe, — France, England, the 
Low Countries, Germany, Burgundy, Italy, and Spain, — that in 
June, 1520, "the two kings, Francis and Henry, with fourteen 
aids, would, in a camp between Ardres and Guisnes, answer 
all comers, that were gentlemen, at Tilt, Tourney, and Barri- 
ers." The queens, with all their trains and retinues, all the 
beauty and brilliancy, all the valor and the glory of the two 
great rival realms were to be present ; and the chivalry of the 
assembled world were to be the champions and the spectators 
of the noble game of spears. All the leaders of England's 
feudal aristocracy were summoned by name, to attend, in or- 
der in their degree, to support their monarch's state, the sum- 
mons amounting to no less than an undeniable command. 
Yet so ruinous were the expenses necessary, at first sight, at 
attendance, that even the Duke of Buckingham, the greatest 
and wealthiest of the English nobles of the day, was staggered 
at the amount, and at the burthens, which, as he foresaw, he 
should be compelled to impose on his tenantry. He had the 
unenviable report of being parsimonious ; but there is no par- 



IDLE PROFUSION. Ill 

simony in reluctance to enforce undue and unwise impositions 
on those committed to his charge, nor in grudging the profusion 
in useless and idle splendors, of riches which might have em- 
battled armies, or, in the day of need, have propped a falling 
empire. He obeyed, but murmured in obeying. The mur- 
murs, it is said, reached the ears of Wolsey, and were not for- 
gotten, but, when accusations were, in after days, strong against 
the powerful duke, even to the endangering of his head, re- 
membered — to the loss of it. 

Be this as it may, willing as the gentlemen of England have 
shown themselves at all times to sacrifice their fortunes and 
even their lives at the call of their sovereigns, there was on 
this occasion discontent and displeasure, the deeper that they 
were secret, among men who had not uttered a word of com- 
plaint, if they had been called upon to devote their all to fur- 
nish forth their king to battle. Nor that unreasonably $ if, as 
the tale runs, more than one noble family has to rue, even to 
this day, in their impoverished condition, the lavish splendors 
of the Field of Cloth of Gold. 

In the meantime, Charles regarded with a wakeful and sus- 
picious eye the mighty preparations for this, to him most ill- 
omened, meeting ; and used every method which his close, 
astute, taciturn, wary temperament enabled him to conceive 
or effect, to frustrate it. When he found this impossible, 
though, if historians may be credited, he had already gained 
the cardinal over to his side, partly by promises that on the 
demise of Leo he would procure him to be elected the pope, 
partly by more solid earnest of his favor in presents, which 
the gold of pillaged Mexico then enabled Spain, the richest of 
European nations, to bestow more lavishly than any other 



112 MARY THE BEAUTIFUL. 

power, he wisely determined to turn to his own favor that 
which he could not prevent. 

Taking occasion, therefore, of a visit from Spain to his Neth- 
erlandish provinces, which it is believed was devised only for 
the purpose to which he turned it, he resolved to pay Henry 
and his aunt, of Arragon, the distinguished honor of waiting 
upon them in their own dominions, and timed his arrival so 
well, that the Spanish ships anchored at Hythe, on the very 
clay in which Henry entered Canterbury on his progress to 
the coast. This preconcerted, but seemingly accidental, meet- 
ing was celebrated with great feasts and rejoicings in that an- 
cient and venerable city, to which he repaired on his uncle's 
invitation ; " where he gladly saw his Aunt Katharine ; the 
queen dowager of France,* also, once proposed for his wife, 
seemed very considerable, as being for her beauty much cele- 
brated by the English and French writers. And, if we may 
believe Polydore, his passion in seeing of her was such as he 
could not be persuaded to dance, and kept that Spanish grav- 
ity, which, in his age and among such company, might well 
have been laid aside." f 

As I have said before, the credit of Polydore Virgil is much 
more than doubtful ; but it may be a little interesting to those 
who look into individual history, as wherein to find the clues 
to the history of the world, to note the supposed effects and 
influences of the beauty of this four-times betrothed, twice- 
wedded, and historically almost unknown, Mary, on the fates 
of nations, during one of the most eventful periods, if not the 
most eventful, of Christendom. 

What an era was that ? If Mary, the beautiful sister of 

* Mary, sister of Henry VIII., widow of Louis XII. of France, duchess of Suffolk, 
t Herbert, fol. T9. 



henry's house at guisnes. 113 

Henry, "the defender of the faith," had been the wife of Charles, 
the emperor, and "the most Catholic king," — if Wolsey had, 
in compliance with the engagements of Charles, been pope, af- 
ter Leo X., in lieu of Adrian, would England have, this day, 
been Lutheran or Roman % Would " gospel light have dawned 
from Anna's eyes?" Would More and Fisher have died, 
Catholics, at the stake, to recreate England Protestant? Would 
Mary, the niece of that Mary, have descended to posterity as 
" the bloody," or ascended the throne of Catholic England, as 
its most Catholic queen? 

During this visit, which lasted only four days, Charles ap- 
pears to have succeeded in establishing himself firmly, in both 
Henry's and his minister's good graces, and then "having 
passed over the Whitsontide holidays, in those sports and enter 
tainments which our king gave him, he departs to Sandwich the 
29th of May, 1520, whence taking ship May 80, he arrived in 
his native country of Flanders, while our king the same day 
passed to Dover; and thence, May 31, with all his train and 
company, to Calais."* On the 4th of June, the king, the two 
queens of England, and the dowager of France, and their suite, 
proceeded to Guisnes, where they took up their abode in a 
splendid palace of wood-work, framed in England and sent out 
by sea for erection, forming a square of three hundred and 
twenty feet, adorned within and without, with tapestries of 
arras, hangings of silk and satin, in short, every luxurious dec- 
oration, which the art of the times could accomplish, or their 
prodigality desire. In front of this splendid structure, daz- 
zling with glass and gilding,! played two fountains, the one of 
wine, the other of hypocras ; and above it was displayed the 
figure of an English archer — a savage, he is called by Lord 

* Herbert of Cberbury, fol. 80. t Menneehet Hist. France, ii. T4. 



114 THE FIELD OF CLOTH OF GOLD. 

Herbert, probably using the word in the sense of forester or 
woodman — drawing a cloth-yard arrow to the head, with the 
vaunting motto, " cui adhcereo prceest." The king of France, 
on the contrary, was lodged in tents only, as being farther re- 
moved from his capital, but, to compensate, they were entirely 
made of cloth of gold, with balls and other devices surmount- 
ing them of solid bullion. 

Before the meeting of the kings, it seems that Wolsey vis- 
ited Francis privately, and remained two days his guest, du- 
ring which time the treaty of eternal amity, as it was called, 
between the two monarchs was ratified, and the betrothal of 
the royal children, the infant dauphin and the baby princess, 
Mary, finally arranged, Francis agreeing to pay to Henry, 
over and above the million of crowns stipulated in 1515, and 
his heirs forever, in ease the marriage should be concluded and 
the dauphin become in right of his wife king of England, an 
annual pension of a hundred thousand crowns of the sun. 

This treaty -to the performance of which both monarchs 
swore on the holy evangelists, having with their queens parta- 
ken of the eucharist in common— which never was performed 
at all, and which one of the parties, Henry, probably never in- 
tended to perform, had eternity assigned to it, as its duration. 
It was stricken on the sixth day of June, 1520, and broken, by 
Henry's formal declaration of war against Francis, on the nine- 
teenth clay of the same month, in 1522. Such is the faith of 
kings, and so justly is it written, "put not your trust in prin- 
ces !" Such is the durability of treaties. 

On the following day, at the sound of a culverin, the two 
royal processions set forth, the one from Guisnes, the other 
from Ardres, and met at a place in the valley of Andern, 
where a splendid pavilion of cloth of gold had been erected for 



THE 'fOUHNAMEHTS. 115 

their reception. Here they met, surrounded by their courts, 
blazing in embroideries of gold, enriched with precious stones, 
velvets of Genoa, tissues of gold and silver, inwoven with all 
gorgeous hues, so that, to borrow the words of the old French 
chronicler, " there were many there who carried on their backs 
their mills, their meadows, and their forests." The kings dis- 
mounted, embraced, and walked arm in arm into the splendid 
pavillion provided for them, and professed each for the other 
the warmest and most affectionate regard ; yet all within this 
harmonious and fraternal show was empty hollowness and dark 
suspicion. Rumors of intended treachery were constantly rife 
and, to prevent the possibility of treason, the attendants were 
carefully numbered on both sides, the kings left their residences 
at one and the same appointed moment, visited their respective 
queens at the same time and spot previously appointed, and that 
simultaneously. In all respects, these royal friends comported 
themselves, one to the other, rather as belligerents during a 
brief armistice, than as, which they professed to be, mutual ad- 
mirers, and, if rivals, rivals only in the pursuit of the same 
phantom quarry, glory. Still, during fourteen days, the ban- 
queting, the revelry, the dance by night, and by day the su- 
perb tournament with the shock of barded steeds, the shiver- 
ing of no pointless weapons but of stout ashen lances with heads 
of the best Bourdeau steel, the clash and clangor of steel coats 
and Milan casques, the rolling of gallant knights in the dust, 
horse and man, before the eyes of queens and princesses, and all 
the peerless aristocracy of female beauty, among the fanfares 
of trumpets, and the cry of herald and king-at-arms, " Fight 
on, brave cavaliers. Man dies, but glory lives forever !" went 
on unwearied and unbroken. On every occasion the two kings 
appeared in fresh and equal splendor ; on every occasion they 



116 THE TOURNAMENTS. 

excelled all, save one another. On each day, each monarch 
ran five courses with grinded spears, or fought at barriers with 
sharp swords, and on each day, each bore down, or foiled, his 
five antagonists. It is as vain to imagine, as it would be false 
to represent, that these mighty princes owed their success to 
the complaisance of their opponents, rather than to their own 
skill and prowess. Those were, still, hard and fierce and yet 
chivalric days, when such a king as Francis, on one of his own 
fields of immortal victory, craved knighthood, as an honor, of 
a simple French cavalier, even if that cavalier were sans peur 
et sans reproche, even if his name were Bayard ; and it is prob- 
able that the suspicion of not putting forth all his force against 
a kingly antagonist would have purchased for the flatterer, even 
if one could be found willing to flatter at the imminent risk 
of losing his own life, and earning by adulation the extra honor 
of royal immolation, not favor, but the reverse ; as if he pre- 
sumed to regard his monarch as a mere carpet-knight, to be 
spared, not as a champion, to be encountered on equal terms, 
and even so at deadly hazard. It must be remembered, that 
Henry II., the son of this very Francis, was killed in a tourna- 
ment before the gates of his own royal residence, by a splinter 
from the broken lance of Montgomery, the captain of his own 
guards. A circumstance which fully justified a very common- 
sense remark of a practical, clear-headed Turk, an envoy of the 
Sublime Porte, who, after beholding a tournament, at the court 
of Charles VII., quietly observed — "If this be meant for fun, 
there's a little too much of the thing; if for earnest, not quite 
enough !"* It must be remembered that Francis himself, be- 
fore he was unhorsed and made prisoner, in the disastrous bat- 
tle of Pavia, killed seven men with his own hand, and would 

*Menneclict, ii. US 



INTERCOURSE OF THE KINGS. 117 

have cut his way through the whole army of the enemy, had 
not his horse been shot under him, and gunpowder, " the grave 
of valor," been brought into play against the lance. It must 
be remembered that Henry was a giant in frame, scarcely in- 
ferior to his colossal grandsire, the fourth Edward; that he 
was as yet a young man, and unencumbered with the fat, which 
in his later years rendered him unwieldy; that he was the lin- 
eal descendant of the iron race of the Plantagenets, as well as 
of the fiery Tudors ; that the blood of Cceur'de Lion was hot 
in his veins, and his example ever in his mind ; that he was 
acknowledged unequivocally to stand among the best men-at- 
arms of his own warlike nation, if not the very best. And, 
these things borne in mind, it will not be too much to believe 
that these generous and gallant princes, were, in deed and not 
in word, the first as in rank, so in prowess and place among 
the spears. 

On one occasion, Francis, whose more impulsive and chivalric 
spirit revolted against the narrow suspicions which had sur- 
rounded and confined the intercourse of himself and his brother 
king with a network of ceremonials, formulas, and precautions 
against that most atrocious of felonies, treason under trust, 
made an effort to break through the unworthy and ungenerous 
restrictions which he felt to be in themselves disgraceful ; and, 
taking horse with a small train of gentlemen, at an early hour 
of the morning, galloped into Henry's camp at Guisnes, and 
surprised the king with a visit before he had left his chamber, 
calling out jocosely that he and all his men were prisoners. 
Henry affected to be charmed with his frankness, taking him 
in his arms and exclaiming that he surrendered at discretion. 
An exchange of gifts of jewelry followed, in which the present 
of the French king as much excelled his rival's as did the gen* 



118 THE EMPEROR AT CALAIS. 

erosity of his heart and the frankness of his nature ; and, on 
the ensuing day, Henry, unwilling to be outdone in the outward 
shows and forms of noble-mindedness, rode over in the like 
manner to visit his "well-beloved brother" in his lines at 
Ardres. 

It is not, however, by such courtesies as these that national 
jealousies are stilled, or national hostilities pacified. It was re- 
marked by all, that, though the solemn passage at arms had 
been proclaimed in the courts of Burgundy and Spain, no 
knight of the emperor's was present in arms to do honor to 
the conference of the kings ; and it said that Francis, in his re- 
sentment at the affront, was so unwise as to countenance, if 
not command, an attack, which proved no more fortunate than 
it was fair in time of peace. 

When the long series of idle displays, worse than profitless 
expences, wearisome pomps, and heartless professions was at 
last ended, the kings embraced with mutual expressions of 
good will and declarations of sincere amity, but Avith doubt, 
distrust, and jealousy rankling at their hearts, more' bitterly 
than before their meeting, and ready at the slightest spark to 
blaze out into open enmity. These feelings, on the part of 
Francis, were not likely to be much assuaged by his learning 
that immediately after bidding himself farewell, between Ar- 
dres and Guisnes, Henry set out, though without the queen 
or the noblest of his train, to Gravelines on the Waal, there to 
return to his nephew, the emperor, the honor he had done him 
by visiting him in England, and reconducted him to Calais with 
great honor, to wait upon his aunt. This visit lasted three 
days, and was marked by the introduction— in the guise of 
maskers at a grand entertainment-into the presence of Charles 
and Henry, of la Roche, and certain French envoys, who read 



QUEEN CLAUDE S MAIDS OE HONOR. 119 

aloud in their presence, the tripartite league formerly conclu- 
ded between, them and Francis, and cited the Emperor, then 
and there to ratify it with his signature. This Charles evaded 
doing, and shortly afterward departed into his own dominions, 
though not till he had thoroughly captivated the vanity, and 
gained, for the time, the capricious adhesion of his uncle, by 
nominating him the absolute umpire in all future disputes 
which should arise between himself and the French monarch. 
An ominous anticipation, truly, to follow so close on the 
heels of a conference for concluding a treaty of eternal and in- 
dissoluble amity ; and one which Francis, undoubtedly, had no 
difficulty in comprehending. It was not sagacity in foreseeing 
the strokes of his enemy, nor brilliancy in the conception, nor 
splendid execution in delivering his own counterstrokes, that 
was wanting in Francis ; but seeretiveness in regard to his 
councils, continence of tongue and temper in reference to their 
disclosure, and patience in awaiting the true time for their de- 
velopment. The lack of these qualities, in addition to his 
splendid genius, fiery imagination, and heaven-daring courage, 
we should perhaps say, rather than in despite of them, that laid 
him open to the far less dazzling adversaries, whom he armed 
against himself. It is worthy of remark, that at this interview 
Anne Boleyn was present — on this point the positive declara- 
tion of Lord Herbert leaves no room for doubt-as well, prob- 
ably, as Jane Seymour, another embryo queen of England, 
both officiating as maids of honor to Queen Claude, surnamed 
the Good, and therefore brought into the closest possible asso- 
ciation with the royalty of England. Miss Strickland notices 
this fact, but observes on it, that " the presence of this young 
lady was, as yet, of no moment to the royalpKatharine, al- 
though her mind had been already somewhat troubled by the 



120 THE MAIDS OF HONOR. 

coquetries" — a light word to use in reference to an almost 
avowed paramour — "of the other sister, Mary Boleyn, with 
King Henry." It is not, however, improbable that the royal 
eye had been attracted by both these fair English maids of 
honor of the French queen ; since, when the war broke out, a 
year or two later, they were both summoned to vacate their 
situations in the French court, and, on their return, Anne was 
appointed to the same place in the household of Katharine 
which she had previously held in that of Claude ; and, on her 
advancement to the crown, Jane Seymour occupied that very 
position, and with similar results, which she had herself mis- 
used toward her right-royal predecessor. 

Of this, however, more in its proper place. Of the pomps 
and splendors of the past scene I could and fain would dis- 
course somewhat more largely ; for I confess that there is 
something in the mingled magnificence and daring, the chiv- 
alry, the recklessness, the splendor, and the risk of those en- 
counters,- bygone and never to return, which is singularly con- 
genial and fascinating to the bent of my spirit. But a just re- 
gard to my limits must forbid, and I can only refer those of 
my readers who care to read farther of those gorgeous days, 
to the pictured pages of Hollingshede and Hall, the latter of 
whom especially revels in the descriptions of those pomps and 
pageantries, even to the dresses of the principal personages, 
which it would not be difficult to reproduce from his minute 
and glowing portraiture. 

It was in this year, and at about this time, that the dispute 
and differences between Luther and his party, of whom Ulric 
Zuinglius, Erasmus, and Philip Melancthon were the most cel- 
ebrated, and Pope Leo X., being at their height, Charles, who 
had been recently crowned emperor at Aix, summoned the 



HENRY A THEOLOGIAN. 121 

Great Reformer to appear before a diet, which he convoked 
at Worms, October, 23, 1520, giving him a safe conduct to 
come and go unmolested. At this diet Luther appeared, still 
wearing his friar's habit, for he had not yet protested against 
the church itself, but only against its abuses ; and, refusing to 
recant or retract his opinions, was proscribed by edict, together 
with all his adherents and followers. 

Considering that by this treatment he was rather punished 
than put in any process of conviction, Henry, who, now liber- 
ated from the excitements and fatigues of war proper, had no- 
thing, unless it were polemics, wherewith to occupy and amuse 
his restless, impatient, irritable spirit, resolved to descend into 
the lists controversial, against this champion of reform, fully 
confident that he could overthrow him as easily by the edge 
of his eloquence and the weight of his ponderous theology, as 
he had beaten down military champions in the tilt-yard by the 
more convincing arguments of battle-axe and double-handed 
sword. 

That Henry was a man of talent, and even of erudition, ac- 
cording to his day, is not to be denied • and it has ever ap- 
peared to me, that one of the most adverse influences to the for- 
mation of his character, and one which led to some of the most 
odious incidents in his subsequent career, was this — that he 
had been studiously educated a theologian, with a view, during 
the lifetime of his brother Arthur, to rilling the archiepiscopal 
diocese of Canterbury ; that he really was more than a tolera- 
ble divine; and that, having once got it into his head that he was 
priest nearly as much as king, he never could divest himself of 
the idea. Hence, when his quarrel arose with Pope Clement, 
on a question perfectly laical and unconnected with religious 
opinions, he aspired not to render England Protestant, as some. 



122 DE SEPTEM SACRAMENTIS. 

persons have strangely understood it, but to erect a separate 
Anglican Catholic church, of which himself and his heirs and 
successors should be the supreme heads and quasi popes. It 
was no nominal supremacy which he claimed to hold, as is 
sufficiently evident from the fact, that in his later persecutions of 
the Protestants, he did actually lay claim to his own infallibil- 
ity, whether -he did so in words or not. It was more the con- 
tumacy of the unhappy martyrs in refusing to be convinced by 
the eloquence and divinity of himself, the pontiff-king, than 
their heresy in rejecting the true faith, that he punished with 
the stake and fagot. 

No sterile title or form of power was that, which he attached 
to the crown of England ; for, had he succeeded in carrying 
out his will, and had the supremacy of the church, which de- 
scended to his heirs, been that supremacy which he intended 
and understood it to be, the sovereign of Great Britain would 
now stand precisely on parallel ground with the Tzar of Rus- 
sia, as absolute monarch and infallible pope over his own church 
and people. 

At this time he was friendly to Leo ; and to Luther, beside 
that he was really averse to his doctrines, and offended at his 
heresies, he was in a manner personally hostile, owing to the 
German monk's often contemptuously expressed opinion against 
Thomas Aquinas, " who was in so much request with the king, 
and especially the cardinal (that as Polydore hath it) he was 
therefore styled Thomist-icus."* He resolved, therefore, out 
of his love for the pontiff, his zeal for the faith, and his hatred 
for Luther, to meet and confound his arguments by solid force 
of counter-argument, and so published his book, entitled de 
Sep tern Sacramentis — a work which so greatly " delighted the 

* Herbert of Cherbmy, fol. 85. 



DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. 123 

pope, that Dr. John Clark, dean of Windsor, our king's am- 
bassador, appearing in full consistory, he, knowing the glorious 
present he brought, first gave him his foot and then his cheeks 
to kiss"* — a condescension, which, it is devoutly to be hoped, 
Dr. John Clark and his royal master duly appreciated. What 
is far more curious, is this, that " he promised to do as much 
for approbation thereof, to all christian princes, as ever was done 
for St. Augustine's or St. Hierome's works " — and that this 
promise was fulfilled, after it had been privately debated by 
the cardinals, whether he should be styled Protector or De- 
fensor Romance ecclesice, or sedis Apostolicaz, or Rex Apostol- 
icns, or orthodoxus, by conferring on him the title of Defender 
of the Faith — a title which, strange to say, is still borne by 
the sovereigns of England — when, so far from defending that 
faith, it is a condition of their ascending the throne that they 
shall not even hold to it. 

King Henry's book, de Septem Sacramentis, I have never 
read, and most assuredly never intend to read ; so that I nei- 
ther am, nor expect to be, prepared to give an opinion of its 
merits or demerits ; neither have I ever met with any criti- 
cism, pro or con. I judge from this, however, that it was su- 
perior to regal authorship in general, and that it must have hit 
the great reformer pretty hard, since it put him into such a 
towering passion that he wrote a reply to it, in which, " after 
allotting to the king no other praise than that of writing in ele- 
gant language," he declared that, " in all other respects, he was 
a fool and an ass, a blasphemer and a liar."f For this disre- 
spect to a king, which the German princes, who protected him, 
naturally enough considered an insult to royalty itself, Luther 

# Herbert of Chertrary, fol. 85. tLardner, Hist, Eng. vi. 105. 



124 * AN ANGLICAN CHURCH. 

was compelled, afterward, to apologise in print. But I doubt 
whether the apology would have much availed the reformer, 
had he ever fallen into the clutches of the royal theologian ; 
and I think I can discover in all his dealings with the pro- 
fessors of the new faith, whom he persecuted so rancorously, 
something of personal animosity, something of the jealous dis- 
putant, as when he publicly argued with the unhappy Lam- 
bert before committing him to the flames, rather than simply 
the cruel bigot and despotical king. 

That he regarded the contumacy of his heretics, in differing 
from his opinions, refusing to conform to his example, and be 
convinced by his arguments, as a more vital offence than adhe- 
ring to the new learning, is, it appears to me, evident from all 
his conduct in reference to the reform ; and that this state of 
mind is partly to be attributed to the effect of his early dispu- 
tation with Luther himself, and partly to his overweening esti- 
mate of his own condition as a divine, arising from his church 
education. Young plants easily receive a deflexion to this side 
or that, which, when their growth is once confirmed, can never 
again be reflexed. Had Henry not been destined for an arch 
bishop of Canterbury, he never, I fancy, would have dreamed of 
becoming supreme head of an Anglican church — perhaps would 
never have been a persecuting king, though this is more doubt- 
ful. But in his very boyhood he had acquired a knowledge of 
ecclesiastical power, a taste for ecclesiastical letters, and he had 
seized an idea that he was to be the head of the English church. 
An idea, which he once grasped, he never again let go; and so 
he would be, and so he was, at last, the supreme head, not of 
the church of England, but of the Anglican church. This last 
difference must be borne in mind, and insisted on throughout 
this reign; for, in the latter part of it especially, we shall find 



DIVISIONS rN THE CHURCH. 125 

r,hree distinct parties, — the adherents of the old faith, the Pa- 
pists of the Roman communion, whom Henry hanged and be- 
headed for denying his own supremacy, the reformers of the 
new faith, or Protestants, whom he roasted for disputing the 
real presence and rejecting five of the seven sacraments, and 
the Anglicans, as, in default of a better title, I shall designate 
them ; for it is absurd to call those Papists, who abjured the 
pope ; or Romans, who would have London, not Rome, the 
seat of church government ; and Catholics it is monstrous to 
style them — since Catholic, or universal, they never have been, 
and, by the grace of God, never shall be — who held to the 
faith of Rome in every particular, except that they would 
have an English, not a Roman, pontiff, and that pontiff, king. 

This triple division certainly worked well for the reforma- 
tion ; since there were clearly none who honestly wished for an 
Anglican church and an English pontiff-king; and those who pro- 
fessed to do sO, did so only from fear of the king's vengeance, 
or from the desire to win his favor ; and these men, the link 
which bound them to Rome once broken, never returned to 
the bondage they had once shaken off; but, when the empty 
dream of an Anglican church of St. Peter sank into oblivion, 
joined the reformers, and became the germ of the extreme 
high church party in the church of England. 

Immediately after this disputation followed the tragical af- 
fair of the great Duke of Buckingham ; an affair which it is by 
no means easy to comprehend or unravel, since the duke's con- 
duct is clearly not free from suspicion of disloyalty and even 
treason ; while yet there seems to have been a want of sufficient 
proof to establish the crime for which he suffered, although 
the compassing the king's death by words alone, without the 
commission of any overt act, was in that age held to justify 



12G WOLSEY AND THE DUKE. 

conviction. His death, it appears, was generally, by the com' 
mons, at the time charged on Wolsey; but Wolsey was then an 
unpopular, and soon after a fallen minister; and so much is evi- 
dently charged on him without any grounds, that one is apt to 
require positive proof against him, which I do not find here, be- 
fore finding him guilty. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who, as 
I have said before, follows Polydore Virgil, the cardinal's worst 
enemy, says that Wolsey had determined on his destruction 
from the hour of his murmuring at the vast expences entailed 
on him by his compelled presence at the Field of Cloth of 
Gold ; and there is this corroboration of that fact, that Sir 
Charles Knevet, the steward whom he had dismissed on that 
occasion, in consequence of the complaints of his tenants, who 
seems to have been subsequently in the cardinal's employ- 
ment! and Sir William Bulmer, a knight who had quitted the 
king's household, had been taken into that of the duke, for 
which disrespect that nobleman had been so far disgraced that 
there was even a talk of committing him to the tower, were 
the principal witnesses against him. 

I find, in Miss Strickland's interesting work on the queens 
of England, the following remarkable anecdote, but she fails to 
indicate its source, which I have been unable to discover ; and, 
as it appears to have been unknown either to Hume or Lin- 
gard, neither of whom allude to it, I cannot judge of its value 
as authority. It is, however, curious, and in consideration of 
the proverb that " where is much smoke there must needs be 
some fire," I quote it, inasmuch as, if it prove nothing else, it 
does prove the generalness of the belief, that the duke fell a 
victim to the cardinal's enmity rather than to his own crim- 
inality. 

" Queen Katharine and Cardinal Wolsey," says the fair au- 



THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 12/} 

thoress, "had lived in the greatest harmony till this time, 
■when his increasing personal pride urged him to conduct which 
wholly deprived him of her esteem. One day the Duke of 
Buckingham was holding the basin for the king to wash, when 
it pleased the cardinal to put in his hands. The royal blood 
of the duke rose in indignation, and he flung the water in Wol- 
sey's shoes, who, with a revengeful scowl, promised Bucking- 
ham ' that he would sit on his skirts.' The duke treated this 
as a joke, for he came to court in a jerkin, and being asked by 
the king the reason of this odd costume, he replied that ' it was 
to prevent the cardinal from executing his threat, for if he wore 
no skirts they could not be sat upon.' " 

Whatever be the truth of this anecdote, or the facts of Wol- 
sey's enmity to the duke, it nevertheless would seem to be 
proved that Buckingham had been guilty of such imprudences, 
to call them by no lighter name, and had committed himself 
so strangely in speeches, showing that he looked forward to 
the king's death, without issue, as a desirable contingency, which 
might have the effect of raising himself to the vacant throne, 
as might well have excited the suspicions and even the fears 
of a king less jealous, suspicious, and vindictive than he whom 
he had unfortunately aroused. 

" The duke was descended," says Lord Herbert, " from Anne 
Plantagenet, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock ; " says Lingard, 
" from Edward III., both through John of Ghent, duke of Lancas- 
ter, and Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester." He was 
not, it is true, a very near kinsman to Henry ; nor was his 
chance of succession more than remote, to speak the most fa- 
vorably of it. Yet it was a hereditary characteristic of the 
jealous house of Tudor to look with the utmost suspicion on 
their collateral kindred ; and, on the smallest pretext of their 



128 THE PROPHECIES OP HOPKINS. 

compassing the crown, to take them off as summarily as if 
they had been the brothers of an Ottoman emperor. Henry's 
own father had sent Edward Plantagenet, the earl of Warwick, 
the last male of that noble race, to the block without even the al- 
legation of a crime ; for no other reason than that Ferdinand of 
Spain, when Katharine's hand was asked for Arthur, Henry's 
elder brother, demurred to granting it, on the ground that so 
long as there existed an heir male of the name of Plantagenet, 
the crown was not secure to the house of Tudor. 

That sufficed to slay Warwick. 

Henry himself had beheaded Edmund de la Pole, earl of 
Suffolk, for no other cause than that his brother Richard had 
assumed, in France, the badge of the White Rose, as if he were 
the heir of York, thus disputing the throne with Tudor. 

And there can be no manner of doubt, that without any in- 
stigation on the cardinal's part, though probably his instigation 
was not wanting, Henry would himself have pursued Bucking- 
ham to the block, on less ground of suspicion than the unhappy 
nobleman had actually given. 

There was at this time a person, who had made some noise 
in England, as a prophet, whether a visionary or an impostor 
it does not appear, one Hopkins, a monk in the priory of Hen- 
ton, in Somersetshire. This man had by some means excited 
the curiosity of Buckingham, who seems to have been a weak, 
indiscreet, and garrulous person ; and, having obtained access to 
him, won his full belief, by the accomplishment of two predic- 
tions, that Henry should gain much honor in his first French 
campaign, and that " if the king of Scots came to England 
then, he should never go home again." Thereafter, it appears, 
by Buckingham's own admission, that he consulted this Hop- 
kins on several occasions, and assisted him liberally with 



TRIAL AND DEATH OF BUCKINGHAM. 129 

money ; and by Hopkins' evidence it is proved, that the sub- 
ject of these consultations was the probability of the duke's suc- 
cession to the throne. 

He also said to Knevet, as it was sworn by that person, on 
the occasion of his disgrace in the matter of Sir William Bul- 
mer, that " had he been committed to the tower, he would 
have so wrought that the principal doers thereof should not 
have great cause for rejoicing. For he would have played 
that part which his father intended to have put in practice 
against King Richard at Salisbury ; who made earnest suit to 
come into the presence of the king, which suit if he might have 
obtained, he, having a knife secretly about him, would have 
thrust it into the body of King Richard, as he had made sem- 
blance to kneel down before him."* He stated, moreover, to 
Sir George Nevil, lord Abergavenny, " that if the king died, 
he would have the whole rule of the realm in spite of whoever 
said the contrary, swearing that if the Lord Abergavenny re- 
vealed this he would fight him.'"f 

There is no pretence brought forward that he was not tried 
fairly ; indeed, unusual impartiality would seem to have been 
used in this case, which was tried by a duke, a marquis, seven 
earls, and twelve barons. The Duke of Norfolk, whose son, 
the Earl of Surrey, was married to Buckingham's daughter, 
was created lord steward, in order to preside ; which, as he 
may be presumed friendly to the prisoner, assuredly argues 
no desire to deal with him unjustly. The witnesses were 
confronted with the prisoner, which was rarely the case in 
this reign, and when Norfolk delivered the sentence it was not 
without tears. 

* Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 8T. t Ibidem. 

F* 9 



130 DEATH OF BUCKINGHAM. 

In answer to his sentence he professed that he never had 
been a traitor, declared that he had nothing against his judges, 
prayed God to pardon them his death, even as he did, and de- 
clining to beg his life, left himself to the king's 'disposal, and 
died as he had lived, a gentleman. He was accordingly be- 
headed, the other revolting particulars of a traitor's doom be- 
ing remitted to him. '- Thus ended the Duke of Buckingham, 
much lamented by the people, who libelled the cardinal for it, 
calling him camificis Jilium, as being thought rather criminal 
through folly and rash words, than any intention declared by 
overt act against the king's person, and therefore not uncapable 
of mercy ; which also it was thought would not have been de- 
nied, had he sued for it in fitting terms." * According to mod- 
ern ideas, and to the law as it exists at present, he was an in 
nocent man, unjustly sacrificed ; but in his own day there is 
no doubt that his sentence was legal, and that his condemna- 
tion and execution were both within the reasons of the statute 
and the usual practice in such cases. In later days of the same 
reign, nobles and noble ladies were brought to the block, for 
no farther offence than quartering royal bearings with their 
own, where the right to do was doubtful. The suggestion, 
however, that Henry would have pardoned the duke on any 
suit of his own, or at any intercession of others, appears to me 
no less gratuitous than the attempt to cast the blame of his 
death on the cardinal, who has enough reproaches to bear, 
justly thrown on him, without fathering on him others, in 
which he has no share. Miss Strickland, quoting Godwin and 
Shakspere, would have us to believe that Queen Katharine did 
make strenuous intercession for the duke, and that, " after use- 
lessly pleading for him with the king, she did not conceal her 

* Herbert of Chorbuiy, fol. 87. 



henry's succession. . 131 

opinion of Wolsey's conduct in the business." It is evident, 
also, that she attributes to this supposed disagreement and 
rupture Wolsey's subsequent hostility to herself and her 
nephew, Charles V. ; but not only does this lack confirmation, 
but it can actually be denied ; since Wolsey was balancing be- 
tween the emperor and Francis, and had nearly inclined the 
king, his master, to declare war on France, and knit ties not 
only of amity but of consanguity with Spain, until the death 
of Leo X., and the election of Adrian showed him that he had 
been tricked with false promises by Charles. 

The fact is, that Buckingham has little claim on our sympa- 
thies. He died a victim assuredly to the stringency of the 
statute of treason, to the jealous state-policy of England, this 
last in some degree palliated if not excused by the cruel wars 
which had so long devastated the land and decimated the ba- 
rons in consequence of the jarring pretensions of royal houses 
and would-be royal heirs, and in some degree to the jealous 
and unforgiving temper of Henry himself. 

It must also be remembered, that this point of succession 
was an extremely sore subject with Henry. Heirs male were 
ever his grand desiderata ; and it is more than possible that, 
had the sons of Queen Katharine lived and promised hearty 
health, Anne Boleyn never had succeeded to her honors, while 
she was yet alive ; and that, if Anne's child, Elizabeth, had 
been as masculine in sex as she proved afterward to be in soul, 
her mother would never have made way for Jane Seymour, 
by the brief and bloody passage from the tower to the grave. 

To all mortals there is a natural desire for sons, who shall 
transmit the name at least of the father to posterity. The 
larger the possessions and the brighter the honors to be handed 
down, the more urgent becomes that desire. When it is the 



132 STATE REASONS. 

question of an empire, and when the translation of that empire 
peacely, lawfully, and among the happiness of the people, or 
"bloodily, anarchically, and with the devastation of fields and 
the conflagration of cities, is the point at issue, it is clear to me 
that a monarch may, not only humanly and naturally, but law- 
fully and patriotically, besiege heaven with prayers for lawful 
issue male ; and use any weapon, which the law gives into 
his hands, in order to preserve the succession to his own law- 
ful line, and to bequeath peace to the nation confided to his 
charge. 

Henry had, at this time, no heir male, no hope of having 
any. Buckingham had announced his intention of claiming 
the crown, should Henry die childless ; and, when we con- 
sider the fact, that since the conquest but one woman, Matilda, 
had ever succeeded to the throne, and she only to have it dis- 
puted through twenty years of civil war at the sword's point, 
we cannot wonder, or much blame that king, if he merely en- 
forced the law, without granting mercy, which does not seem 
to have been asked, either directly or vicariously, for the 
culprit. 

If Henry had no blacker stain of bloodshed, registered 
against his name, than this of Buckingham, he would not figure 
on the page of history as the sanguinary tyrant, we now see 
him painted ; nor, if Wolsey had never counselled anything 
more evil than his taking off, even if he did counsel it, which 
is not proven, would he have had cause to repent him that 
he had not served his heavenly, as he had his earthly, king 
and master. 

The unhappy Buckingham had not long expiated his offence 
by his blood, before Europe was again kindled into flame by 
the fiery ambition of Francis, at the very moment, moreover, 



OUTBREAKING OF THE WAR. 133 

when Charles and Henry were secretly devising plans for cre- 
ating a rupture, in order to favor the English king's cherished 
object of reconquering France, and replacing on his head the 
more than half-won diadem, which had been wrested from the 
feeble hands of his sixth namesake and predecessor. Before, 
however, their plans were matured, making the restitution of 
the kingdom of Navarre to its rightful owners his pretext, and 
taking occasion of a revolt in Spain against Charles as his oc- 
casion, Francis hurried his armies across the Pyrenees, and, 
within fifteen days, drove every Spaniard out of the territories 
of that kingdom ; but when he pressed his advantages and 
pushed his forces forward to Logroho, in Castille, the insur- 
gents rallied to the banners of their king, drove back the inva- 
ders, and recovered Navarre, even more rapidly than it had 
been taken. 

At the same time, De la Marque, duke of Bouillon, was in- 
cited by Francis to invade the Netherlands, which he actually 
did, at the he;id of an army levied in France. This diversion 
was, however, no more successful than the direct attack. De 
la Marque was driven back, and, the war being carried into his 
own country, saw his territories devastated by forty thousand 
men — Germans and Switzers, in the pay of Charles — while the 
people of Italy flew to arms, at the call of the pope, with the 
intent to drive the French across the Alps. 

So soon as the first blow was struck, and before the proxi- 
mate results could be anticipated, both the belligerents ap- 
pealed to Henry, as their regularly constituted arbiter ; France 
claiming that, by the treaty of Noyon, Spain was bound to 
evacuate Navarre — which was merely an idle pretext — and 
Spain complaining that France had invaded her territories in 



134 CONFERENCES OF ARBITRATION. 

time of peace, and demanding Henry's armed intervention, ac- 
cording to the articles of the general pacification. 

At this point, the king of England had unquestionably the 
right to intervene ; and, with a view to his favorite project of 
reconquering France, it was clearly his policy to take part with 
the emperor, by a bold and energetic resolution, thereby se- 
curing the weight of his alliance. He was, however, taken un- 
awares. The moment he had so long desired had anticipated 
his desire ; his project was yet a project only; no preparations 
made, no levies of men, no squadrons at sea, no moneys 
granted, still less any on hand, for the prosecution of a design 
so gigantic. 

Henry, therefore, hesitated ; wisely deferred the execution 
of plans, which, under his then circumstances, he could by no 
means have prosecuted to advantage ; exhorted both the kings 
to peace, inviting them to send commissioners, with full pow 
ers, to explain their grievances, and pledged himself to a just 
arbitration between them. 

Francis, at first demurred ; Charles, who was confident both 
of the justice of his own cause and of the favorable inclinations 
of his umpire, and farther having the means of proving by in- 
tercepted letters that the simultaneous attack of Navarre and 
the Netherlands had been premeditated by the French, gave 
his immediate consent. When the fortune of war, however, 
turned against himself, the French king accepted the media- 
tion, but refused to be bound by any award, which should not 
meet the concurrence of the chancellor, his chief commissioner. 

Wolsey was immediately nominated arbitrator, and sent to 
Calais with a splendid train, whither came to him, first, the 
imperial commissioners, and, on the next day, the French em- 
bassy ; but it became apparent that no final end could be 



CONFERENCES OF ARBITRATION. 135 

approached, Gattinara, the emperor's chancellor, declaring his 
power limited to stating the facts of the case and proving them, 
and then demanding the intervention of Henry. On this diffi- 
culty, it was proposed by Gattinara, and warmly seconded by 
the French, that Wolsey should visit the emperor in person, 
who was lying at Bruges, and endeavor to bring about a re- 
conciliation. 

This was, probably, no more than a preconcerted plan de- 
vised to give Wolsey an occasion of having personal confer- 
ence with the emperor, and of maturing secret negotiations 
with him concerning matters, which he had full authority to 
treat and conclude, before leaving home. Whether it was so 
or not, Wolsey eagerly grasped the opportunity, proceeded to 
Bruges in almost royal state escorted by four hundred horse, 
was received by Charles at a mile without the gates, conducted 
into the city, and feasted with great solemnity during thirteen 
days, the mornings of which were occupied by public coun- 
cils or private conclaves, wherein all the preliminaries of a 
private treaty were arranged between France and England. 

In the meantime the war was still proceeding, and at first, 
to the disadvantage of Francis. Amand and Mortaigue, in 
Picardy, were taken by the Seigneur de Lignes, a subject of 
the emperor's ; Ardres by the Burgundians ; and Mouzon car- 
ried, and Mezieres invested, by the Count de Nassau, the em- 
peror lying, the while, inactive at Valenciennes. Then Francis 
advanced, retook Mouzon, and raised the siege of Mezieres ; 
but, pressing too hotly on the retiring imperialists, was checked 
and driven back with loss by De Nassau. 

At this moment the cardinal had framed a project of peace, 
an immediate armistice to be proclaimed on the base of uti 
possidetis, — the restitution or retention of the territories and 



136 SENTENCE RENDERED BY WOLSEY. 

fortresses captured on either hand to be left to Henry's arbi- 
try. This project was carried to the emperor by the Lord of 
St. Johns and Sir Thomas Boleyn, and to the French king by 
the Earl of Worcester and the Bishop of Ely. The terms 
might possibly have been arranged ; but, pending the negotia- 
tions, Fontarabbia was taken by Bonnivet, in Guipuscoa, be- 
yond the frontiers of Navarre, and the emperor insisted on its 
rendition before proceeding farther. This being refused, the 
cardinal gave sentence, " that the king of France having been 
the first breaker of the truce, the king of England was bound 
to assist the emperor, by the terms of the general pacification ; " 
and orders were issued to raise the English contingent of six 
thousand archers, according to the articles of 1518, although 
too late that they should take part in that campaign. A 
league was then contracted at Calais, between the emperor, the 
pope, and Henry, by which it was agreed, that in order to re- 
strain the ambition of France and operate more effectively 
against the Turk, the three powers should in the spring of 
•1523 invade France with a powerful army ; and that if there- 
upon France should not yield to reason, Henry should then de- 
clare war on him, revoke the contract of marriage of his daugh- 
ter Mary to that king, and betroth her to the emperor, who 
should make good to England the loss of all payments stipula- 
ted by Francis. 

Before this treaty was actually signed, the Marquis of Pes- 
cara, the emperor's general in Italy, being assisted by the pope's 
forces under Prospero Colonna, besieged Lescun, the French 
commander, in Parma. Lautrech, his brother, came up to his 
relief with twenty thousand Swiss and seven or eight thousand 
Venetians, and raised the siege ; but, a few days later, a part 
of the Switzers, being ill-paid, mutinied, and were gained over 



THE "WAR IN THE MILANESE. 137 

to Colonna's army, by the Cardinal di Medicis ; whereupon that 
able officer resumed the offensive, stormed Milan, and, Parma 
and Pavia surrendering, and the castle of Cremona having been 
surprised by a coup de main, cleared the whole Milanese of 
the French in a few days, and terminated the war in that quar- 
ter with a thunderclap. 

" Which the pope hearing," writes Lord Herbert, " and be- 
ing assured together that Sfo2'za should be restored to Milan, 
was so overjoyed that he died thereof, December 1, 1521 ; so 
can' every passion in his turn kill, though some suspected he 
might die of poyson." * About the same time Toumay sur- 
rendered to the imperial forces ; which was a yet harder blow 
to Francis than his expulsion from the Milanese, since he was 
still compelled to pay to Henry the pension stipulated for its 
restitution, unless he chose to break treaty with him also, and 
bring him down upon himself, in open war, with all his forces 
at once, instead of abiding the time appointed, in 1523, and 
this he could not afford to do, having quite enough on his hands 
already, without adding Henry's dreaded archery to the forces 
of the coalition. 

All these events show how entirely erroneous is Miss Strick- 
land's idea, that the cardinal entertained any personal animos- 
ity either to the Emperor Charles or his Aunt Katharine, so 
early as May of this year, when Buckingham died ; and we 
find that, on the death of Leo, Wolsey wrote to Charles, re- 
minding him of his promise, as relying on his aid to obtain the 
papacy, at the same time that he sent Dr. Pace to Rome in or- 
der to solicit the cardinals, and claiming his support, in requital 
of the care he had ever had of his interests. 

This year, says Bellay, as quoted by Lord Herbert, muskets 

* Herbert of Cherbury, fol 94 



138 INVENTION OP THE MUSKET. 

were invented, and first used in this war. The notice refers, 
however, to some improvement in the weapon, and not to its 
invention de novo ; since a rude firearm, known as the hand- 
gun, was in use so early as the battle of Bosworth, though so 
clumsy as to require two men to work it. At the battle of 
Pavia, moreover, the musketry of the Spanish foot was so 
rapid, and so well sustained, that it broke the magnificent 
gendarmerie of France ; a result not attainable by means of a 
weapon originated only one year before the time when itself, 
with the tactics depending on it, had been brought to such 
perfection as to decide the fate of a stricken field. 

The most important thing, perhaps, to Christendom that oc- 
curred in this reign, far surpassing all considerations of wars, 
conquests, and invasions, as it probably decided forever the re- 
ligious creed of the great Anglo-Norman race, in all parts of 
the world to which it is destined to extend, is the Papal elec- 
tion, which occurred in the early part of 1522. 

We have seen that Wolsey depended on the active coopera- 
tion of the emperor in causing the choice to fall upon himself. 
Henry was anxious that this honor should be conferred on his 
minister and friend ; and it might be supposed that Francis, 
having no particular candidate of his own, nor influence at 
Rome sufficient to elect him if he had, would rather see the 
choice fall on a subject of the partially neutral king of En- 
gland than on a nominee and partisan of Charles. 

Had Wolsey succeeded in mounting the Papal chair, it is 
little likely that any rupture would have occurred between 
Rome and Henry ; and had Elizabeth been educated Catholic, 
and, succeeding the Catholic Mary, been herself succeeded by 
Roman Catholic Stuarts, who shall say that, at this moment, 
England, Scotland, and even the United States of America, 



ELECTION OF THE POPE. 139 

might not have been as completely under the influence of Pa- 
pistry as Spain or Ireland, and steeped in equal ignorance, im- 
becility, and barbarism. On such contingencies it is useless to 
speculate, farther than to observe on how small and seemingly 
insignificant points the greatest events sometimes hinge and 
turn, and how extraordinary providences of the Most High are 
sometimes passed over, in history, almost without remark, as 
accidents. 

This election of Pope Adrian, in lieu of Wolsey, is one of 
those accidents ; and it is singular that I do not find it any- 
where commented upon, as the first link in the chain of events, 
which led to the disruption of England from the Romish ortho- 
doxy, and the attribution of a religious supremacy to the wearer 
of the British crown. 

The Cardinal Giulio di Medicis, it appears, had secured 
voices enough in the conclave to frustrate any rival candidate, 
although not enough to install himself. His most dangerous 
competitors were the Cardinals Wolsey, Colonna, and Farnese; 
and he at once determined that if not himself, no one of these 
should be elected pope. He accordingly diverted attention to 
Adrian, cardinal of Tortosa, a native of Utrecht, eminent for 
learning and virtue, who had been preceptor to Charles, and 
who was now resident in Spain, "where he had the quality of 
" Gobernador di Costilla.^ Cajetan, who admired the wri- 
tings of Adrian, seconded his nomination by Di Medicis, and 
Adrian was elected pope, January 9, 1522, so many as nine- 
teen votes, however, having been cast, at one time, in favor of 
Wolsey. The Italian writers throw much reproach on the 
authors of this election, Guicciardini styling Adrian, Pontifice 
Barbaro, and Pallavicino lamenting that, within nine years af- 
ter Julius drove the barbarians out of Italy, a barbarian should 



140 POPE ADRIAN. 

have occupied his chair. The choice, however, appears to have 
been a good one ; and although Charles could not be expected 
to oppose the elevation of his own tutor, subject, and minister, 
to the Papal throne, he does not appear to have taken any 
overt part in supporting him, or hindering the English cardi- 
nal. And so Wolsey appears to have rightly understood it ; 
for, remembering that Adrian was an old and infirm person, 
and regarding Ins hopes rather deferred than frustrated, he as 
yet betrayed no animosity toward Charles, probably felt 
none ; but proceeded in the line of policy, which had been 
determined, as if nothing had occurred adverse to his interests. 
During this winter, seriously alarmed at the force of the 
coalition against him, Francis at first exerted himself strenu- 
ously to regain the friendship of Henry ; but when he found 
that impossible, he had recourse to the extreme measure of 
laying all the English shipping in his ports under embargo, 
and even of confiscating the property of all the English mer- 
chants in France. Henry retaliated by imprisoning all the 
French within his dominions, not excepting the ambassador ; 
and finished by sending his defiance to the king of France by 
Clarencieux, king-at-arms. In May, Charles landed at Dover ; 
and the treaties between himself and his uncle, with regard to 
the invasion of France and the marriage of Mary with her 
cousin, were fully discussed and ratified. -f\The invasion was 
to be made by the two monarchs, each at the head of forty 
thousand men ; but Henry's was merely a paper army ; his 
coffers were empty, exhausted by his boundless prodigality 
and idle luxury ; the people were in no humor to be taxed ar- 
bitrarily, under the name of benevolences, voluntaries, and the 
like ; and it was late in August, before the Earl of Surrey, 
whose great reputation, won at Flodden, had gained for him 



IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. 141 

the leading of the army of invasion, was enabled to take the 
field at the head of twelve thousand men, paid by the king, 
four thousand volunteers, and a thousand German horse. With 
this force, the French wisely declining general actions, and 
Surrey as wisely avoiding to attack fortified cities, he devas- 
tated all Artois and the Boulonnois, up to Amiens ; when, a 
dysentery having attacked his men, and the season being ex- 
tremely unfavorable, he retired to Calais, having inflicted cruel 
injuries on the enemy's country, greatly enriched the adventu- 
rers, but acquired neither honor nor permanent advantage. 

In the meantime Francis had awakened two formidable 
home antagonists to Henry, who, had they been properly sus- 
tained by France, or been in themselves men of energy, might 
have shaken the English throne by diversions, which its oc- 
cupant had no means of meeting with any force he had in the 
field. 

In Ireland, the Earl of Desmond agreed to rise on the land- 
ing of a French army, join it with the whole power of the na- 
tion, and never lay down his arms until he should have con- 
quered the whole of Ireland from the English, half for his own 
hand, half for Eichard de la Pole, the representative, or pre 
tender of the house of York. Francis, however, contented 
with the alarm created by the mere project, forgot to pay 
Desmond the pension which was the condition, and never em 
barked the army, the landing of which should have been the 
signal, of the rising. In Scotland, the regent, Albany, who 
had returned at Margaret's invitation, that turbulent and ill- 
conditioned woman having quarrelled both with her husband 
and her brother, refused to renew the truce between the two 
nations, which expired that year ; and, at the instigation of 
Francis, and by means of his aid, marched from Annan with 



142 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

an army of eighty thousand men, and forty-five brass guns, 
against the English borders, to defend which there was not a 
man, beyond the local militia, the moss-troopers of the 
marches, and the retainers of the feudal nobility of the district. 
The Earl of Shrewsbury was appointed, instantly, to array and 
command the men of the northern counties ; but he was anti- 
cipated by the daring address of the bold Lord Dacre, warden 
of the western marches, who actually crossed the borders with 
five hundred men, made proclamation on Scottish ground, that 
the Scots should return into peace with England before the 
first day of March next, or they might take the consequences ; 
which, he added, those who remembered Flodden might well 
judge what they were like to be. At the same time, he wrote 
to Albany granting him a month wherein to solicit peace of 
Henry's indulgence. Thereupon Albany engaged to disband, 
and actually did disband, an army, which might have marched 
to the Trent, had it dared, without finding an organized foe to 
resist it ; and Dacre contracted to counter-order the advance 
of the English powers, not a man of which was yet levied. It 
is no wonder, if in one of his letters to the king, Wolsey charac- 
terized the regent as " a coward and a fool." The emperor 
had been, equally with Henry, prevented, by lack of money, 
from pressing the war effectively ; for he was far from being 
popular with his Spanish subjects, who accused him of favor- 
ing his Austrians and Flemings, at their expense ; and the 
Cortez were anything but liberal in their grants to sustain a 
war, which did not in fact materially interest them, being 
waged chiefly in Italy and the Netherlands, their own borders 
being in no danger even of menace. 

In the ensuing year, 1523, the king, who had now governed 
for eight years, without having once summoned the great coun 



WOLSEY AND THE COMMONS. 143 

cil of the nation, was reduced by necessity, his French pension 
being discontinued, and it not being looked for that Charles 
could make it good, during the continuance of the war, to sum- 
mon his parliament, to meet him at the Black Friars. Sir 
Thomas More was appointed, by Wolsey, speaker of this par- 
liament ; which fully proved the truth of what has been stated 
above, concerning the independence of the English commons 
at this period, in relation to money questions, as compared 
with their total subserviency in questions of general or individ- 
ual liberty. 

Wolsey demanded the sum of eight hundred thousand 
pounds, to be raised by a general property tax of twenty per 
cent. The commons heard him in silence; and, on his insist- 
ing on a reply, he was informed that the house could reply 
only by its speaker, and that the speaker could reply only as 
instructed by the house, after debate. However dissatisfied, 
Wolsey was compelled to await the convenience of the king's 
lieges. The question was debated, adjourned from day to day ; 
and at length a deputation solicited the king, through the car- 
dinal, that the amount of the demand should be reduced. 
Wolsey again came to the house, answered the opposition in a 
set speech, and called on them to reason with him. But, with 
the same spirit that has always characterized that body, they 
made answer, that they would hear all that he had to say, but 
that they would reason only among themselves. When Wol- 
sey had left the house, they voted, in lieu of twenty per cent., 
a tax, for two years, of five per cent, on all kinds of property ; 
for the third year, the same tax, on fees, pensions, and rents of 
land ; and for the fourth year the same, on movables only. 
From this levy the' northern counties — Noithumberland, Dur- 
ham, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Chester were exempt, 



144 THE SCOTTISH WAR. 

on account of the Scottish war, the brunt of which they had to 
support ; and the cinque ports were free of it, in virtue of their 
charter. With this diminished grant Henry was obliged to 
be content, and to maintain his contracts as best he might, 
granting a general pardon in virtue of the goodwill of his 
commons. 

He now proceeded to carry on the war in earnest. In Scot- 
land, whence Albany had fled in disgrace, after his inglorious 
retreat before Dacre, he reconciled himself with his sister Mar- 
garet, who readily agreed to have her son proclaimed king, at 
the Tolbooth in Edinburgh, on condition that her brother 
should support her with an army. 

To the command of this army, Surrey, the son of the victor 
of Flodden, was appointed ; and he conducted the war with 
his father's valor and ability. The Scottish marches were de- 
vastated, far and wide ; the flourishing town of Jedburgh was 
laid in ashes, and all seemed going as he would have it, when, 
on the very day of the Jedburgh conflagration, Albany landed 
on the western coast of Scotland with two thousand French 
auxiliaries and stores of arms and ammunition. The whole 
Scottish nation rose as one man. Sixty thousand men flocked 
under arms to the standard of the regent, on Burrow Moor. 
Surrey wrote urgently to the king to send him reinforcements, 
to order all the young lords who wasted their time about the 
court at tennis and dice, that they should join the camp, and. 
above all, to require that he should be provided with four 
thousand German regulars, who should help to discipline his 
raw levies, and enable him to meet pikes with pikes ; the En- 
glish infantry being almost entirely archers, and the phalanx 
of Scottish spears being almost as formidable as that of the 
Macedonians of old. 



ware: castle. 145 

In the meanwhile, Albany rushed down at the head of his 
overwhelming force to the borders, which he reached on the 
very day, when Surrey being reinforced from nine to fifty 
thousand men, garrisoned the sti'ong-holds of Wark, Norham, 
and Berwick, and took post at Belford to watch the regent's 
movements. 

Ignorant of what had happened, Albany at once attacked the 
Castle of Wark, and in a single day, with his powerful artil- 
lery, battered it in breach, stormed the outworks, and even 
carried the inner court with his French auxiliaries ; but there 
the English archery rallied, and the Kentdale bows of West- 
moreland poured such a deadly hail of clothyard shafts upon 
the assailants that they were unable to keep the ground they 
had won, and were driven in confusion out of the lines, as the 
night fell heavy and precluded all farther efforts. 

The writer has stood within the walls of that old and well- 
defended keep ; which, it seems, never was repaired ; for the 
great breach, torn down by the Scottish guns, yet yawns wide 
enough for a hundred men abreast to march over the moat 
upon the debris of its fall, and enter the unguarded courtyard. 
But to this day, in all the walls, wherever the joints of the ashler- 
work and mortar admitted their penetration, the forked, iron 
heads of the English arrows stand black and rusted, literally 
as thick " as quills upon the fretful porcupine." Thirty-and- 
two barbed heads, of four inches in length, were counted in a 
piece of wall not above two yards square, directly on the level 
which the column of the enemy must have crossed in mount- 
ing to the assault ; and if that hail of arrows fell as thickly 
where the combatants were in serried column as it did on the 
bare walls, it is no wonder that they fell back in disorder ; 

and there is no doubt that they did so fall, for although the 
G 10 



146 THE SERVANTS OF THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. 

English archery were trained to shoot " together," as it was 
termed, " and wholly," every shaft was launched with an indi- 
vidual aim. 

On the next day the English host was in motion ; but the 
very name of the victor of Flodden, though borne by another 
than he, was too much for the nerves of Albany. In fear and 
disorder the Scottish host crossed the borders at midnight ; 
Albany again fled to France ; the son of Margaret was pro- 
claimed king, under the regency of his step-father, the Earl of 
Angus, truce followed truce, and — a thing almost unheard of 
in the annals of those warlike sister nations — for eighteen years 
no slogan roused the burghers of Carlisle, no war cry of St. 
George startled the foresters of Ettrick, the reivers of Liddes- 
dale, and neither English bows, nor broadswords and blue-bon- 
nets, crossed the border. 

Of a certainty, that house of Tudor was well served by the 
proud aristocracy of England, to the end ; though confiscation, 
and the Tower and the block, were for the most part the re- 
compense they earned from the gratitude alike of Henry and 
his lion-hearted daughter. 

In Italy, in France, things seemed at first to promise no less 
favorably for the confederates, than in Ireland and Scotland ; 
and, in the Milanese, Bonnivet could effect nothing, but after a 
fruitless campaign was compelled to raise the siege of Milan, 
and go into winter quarters at Biagrasso. But Suffolk, who 
had invaded France with a splendid force, and had been joined 
by the imperialists under the Count de Buren, wasted time, 
allowed himself to be cut off from the allies on the German 
frontiers, and after a wretched retreat on Valenciennes, was 
compelled to disband his army. Charles, by the mutinous 
temper of his Spanish lords, was prevented from invading Gui 



POLEMICS IN HISTORY, 147 

enne in due season, and only succeeded, at the end of autumn 
in recovering Eontarabbia, the restoration of which had been 
his ultimatum in the late negotiations for peace. In Septem- 
ber of this year the Pope Adrian died, and Wolsey once more 
entertained hopes, by the aid of the emperor, of ascending the 
vacant chair. 

Henry wrote to the emperor, requiring him to exert him- 
self to secure the election of Wolsey ; and that minister him- 
self went so far as to urge him to advance his Italian army 
toward Rome, and so contribute the fear of force to the 
other motives for his elevation. This last Charles declined to 
do ; and, although the English agents at Rome were instructed 
to spare neither pains nor money in compassing their object, 
the French cardinals offered so strenuous a resistance to Wol- 
sey, whom they regarded as their king's bitterest enemy, that 
nothing could be effected in his favor; and that, ultimately, 
Giulio di Medici, was nominated by his principal antagonist, 
Pompeo Colonna, and, receiving the votes of a majority of the 
conclave, ascended the Papal throne, with the title of Clem- 
ent VII. 

It does not, to write candidly, strike me that any faith was 
broken by the emperor to Wolsey ; nor is it, by any means, 
clear to me, that any offence was taken against that prince by 
the cardinal ; but the truth is this, that, throughout the whole 
of this reign, every fact, civil or military, foreign or domes- 
tic, relating to the course of affairs in England, even to the 
character and conduct of the queens, has been seized on by po- 
lemical writers, and tortured into carrying some meaning, or 
arising from some cause, which never had any real existence. 
Of this kind is the story insisted on, it would appear, in the 
first plaee, by the imperialists, and since taken for granted by 



148 WINTER CAMPAIGN IN ITALY. 

all historians, up to Lingard,* that the whole matter of Henry's 
divorce was gotten up by Wolsey, in order to create a rup- 
ture between Henry and Charles, and so to avenge himself on 
the latter prince for his lukewarmness in his own cause at this 
time. It makes, however, strongly against this view of the 
question, that for nearly two years after the date of his disap- 
pointment, neither in his conduct, nor in his dispatches, neither 
in his own bearing, nor in the policy of his government, do 
any signs appear of disaffection toward the emperor, or of lean- 
ing toward his rival, in the cardinal. Moreover, it is not in 
evidence, that any steps were taken toward setting aside the 
king's marriage with Katharine, even if any idea of the sort 
had arisen in Henry's mind, until after the conferences at 
Greenwich, in 1527, nearly four years later, respecting the 
marriage of Francis with the Princess Mary, whose legitimacy, 
it is pretended,f was here first called in question, by the Bishop 
of Tarbez. 

During this winter Henry was desirous of invading Nor- 
mandy, but to that end the cooperation of the Constable Bour- 
bon, who had traitorously thrown off his allegiance to Francis, 
and was bearing arms for Spain against his own country, would 
have been required; and he could not be spared from the 
prosecution of the war in Italy, which was carried on without 
intermission, neither party going into winter-quarters. Bon- 
nivet, who had hoped to be allowed to repose during the in- 
clement season at Biagrasso, found his own armies so much 

* Lingard, vi. 78. 

1 1 say pretended,, because, on examination of the MS. journals of the French am- 
bassadors, concerning these conferences, it is clear that no such question arose at all ; 
and that the whole story was a device got up between the king and Wolsey, to ac- 
count for the origination of the proceedings. The falsity, however, of the pretence 
does not impugn the evidence afforded by the date. 



BOURBON INVADES FRANCE. 149 

reduced by sickness and desertion, while that of Spain was 
maintained in perfect force and condition, that it became ne- 
cessary for him to retreat. This he did in February, 1524, in 
tolerably good order, so far as to Marignano ; but, in crossing 
the Sessia, he was totally defeated ; the Chevalier Bayard and 
many of his best officers were slain ; and, in a few days, every 
French garrison in Italy had surrendered, and there was not 
an armed Frenchman to be found on Italian soil. 

Bourbon's fierce thirst for vengeance now led him to insist 
on the invasion of his native land, and the emperor, although 
advised to the contrary, by his own officers, accepted his pro- 
ject, and urged Henry to second him by the irruption of an 
English force into Picardy. Henry had, however, found by 
the result of the two last campaigns, that there was nothing to 
be gained by such desultory and disconnected attacks ; and, 
though he consented to pay half the expenses of the campaign, 
declined putting any independent army in the field. Never- 
theless, the constable invaded France with an army of seven- 
teen thousand veteran Spaniards, at that time the best troops 
in the world, under the command of the Marquess of Pescara ; 
and had his plan of striking directly at the heart of the king- 
dom, where he expected to be joined and probably would 
have been joined by great forces of his friends and adherents, 
been carried out, he might probably have succeeded in making 
himself master of Paris. Had he done this, he would, as he 
was sworn to do, have proclaimed Henry VIII. king of France, 
when he would have been -supported by the whole power of 
England, both in men and moneys. But the imperialists in- 
sisted on turning aside into Provence, to besiege Marseilles, 
wishing to secure for their master a pied a terre and port 



150 THE SIEGE RAISED. 

of entrance in France, similar to that which Henry had in 
Calais. 

The step was fatal. Marseilles was stoutly defended by 
Philip de Chabot ; Francis was marching to its relief with 
strong forces ; and Henry and Charles — each fearing, as Lord 
Herbert says, lest the other should reap the advantage of the 
expedition — failing to supply him with funds, the army of 
Bourbon mutined for want of pay ; " although Sir John Rus- 
sel had newly brought him twenty thousand pounds from our 
king." * The constable, in consequence, was forced to raise 
the siege, reembarked his cannon, and retired with loss to Ge- 
noa, leaving behind him the Prince of Orange, a prisoner in 
the hands of the enemy. 

It was now the middle of October, and too late for the com- 
mencement of any great, new enterprise, according to the cau- 
tious rules of prudential warfare. But Francis was anything 
but of a cautious or prudential temperament. Fierce, impet- 
uous, and vehement by nature, he was galled almost to madness 
by the shameful loss of the Milanese, during the early portion 
of the campaign, and yet more by the invasion of the sacred 
soil of France, by one of its own recreant sons, if he were the 
bravest and most able. He was, moreover, at the head of a 
" flourishing" army of thirty thousand men; though principally 
volunteers and mercenaries, a fact which the historian mentions, 
as, in his opinion, a disadvantage ; because the volunteers, "be- 
ing irregular and properly under no command," would neces- 
sarily " be admitted to the hazard of disordering a whole 
army;" while the mercenaries he represents as "slow, willful, 
of small trust, and oftentimes venal." It must be observed, 
however, on the other hand, that, at this very date, standing 

*Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 125. 



STANDING ARMIES. 151 

armies, except these very mercenary bands, from which he de- 
tracts, were unknown ; and that these Swiss, German, and 
Walloon regiments were not only the finest, but the only, dis- 
ciplined soldiers in Europe. The volunteers in question, were 
the splendid gendarmerie of France, composed of the chivalry 
and aristocracy of the kingdom, with their households and ten- 
antry, the men in the ranks being, for the most part, gentle- 
men of name and lineage. 

At this time there was not in England, except the beef-eaters 
of the royal household, a bbdy of a hundred regulars ; nor were 
there more at the commencement of the troubles between 
Charles I. and his parliament. The Plantagenets conquered 
Ireland, Wales, and two-thirds of France ; the Tudors held the 
balance of the world, and ruled their own country with an iron 
hand ; and the best and most unfortunate of the Stuarts main- 
tained a warfare of seven years' duration, without regular 
troops, supplies, or money, solely by means of volunteers. 

The first English standing army was that organized by 
Cromwell, which, at his bidding, dissolved the long parlia- 
ment, and at the bidding of his successor, Monk, brought 
back a king to England, and crushed the commonwealth under 
foot. 

With this powerful and valorous army, then, Francis re- 
solved to carry the war at once into the Milanese, with the in- 
tent to finish it by a blow struck at the capital. Between the 
two armies it was now a race, whether of the two should first 
reach Milan, the one to storm it before it should be garrisoned, 
the other to secure it before the arrival of the French. Fran- 
cis, with the usual dash and impetus of a French general and 
army, burst over the barriers of the Alps, by the passes of 
Mont Cenis, and overflowed the low country at the foot of the 



152 FORCED MARCHES UPON MILAN. 

mountains like a deluge. The imperialists, baffled but not dis- 
pirited, struggled manfully through the defiles of Riviera del 
Mare, but had barely reached Alba, when Francis was at Ver- 
celli, and actually nearer than themselves to the city ; they 
made such speed, however, that they were enabled to throw 
Don Anthony de Legoa, with twelve thousand Spaniards and 
six thousand lansquenets, into Pavia, and to garrison the cas- 
tle of Milan, the town being the seat of a pestilential disorder, 
while with the bulk of their army they took post at Lodi. 

At this period of the war, Spain appeared to be in an ill po- 
sition as needs might be ; the pope having secretly entered 
into a league with Francis, and sent a special private envoy, 
one John Joaechino, a Genoese, who should endeavor to bring 
over Henry and his minister to that party. It is the fashion 
for historians to say that, had Francis pushed directly on to 
Milan, and pursued the imperialists to the uttermost, he would 
have concluded the campaign with a conquest. Historians 
say the same thing concerning Hannibal, after the battle of 
Cannae ; but people do not seem to remember that Hannibal, 
and Francis the First, and a few more martialists, over whose 
blunders the writers make so merry, were probably quite as 
good generals, to say the least, as their critics. It is certain 
that Francis obeyed a sound military rule, in refusing to leave 
a strong fortress in his rear, garrisoned by a veteran force 
equal to above half his own numbers, which, the moment he 
had passed by, would be available in the field against him for 
active operations. 

His judgment is more questionable in detaching the Duke 
of Albany, with twelve thousand men, to operate against Na- 
ples ; and the Marquis of Saluzzo, with four thousand more, to 
make a demonstration against Savona, whence to threaten Ge- 



MUTUAL DISTRUST. 153 

noa. From this moment the suspicions of the emperoi 
against Henry and Wolsey appear to have commenced, though 
it should seem with little cause ; for, although the Genoese, 
Joacchino, continued in London on the part of Louise, the. 
queen mother and regent of France, no proof can be adduced 
that Wolsey had yielded to his solicitations, or encouraged his 
views. On the contrary, a letter is extant from that minister 
to his envoy with the pope, charging him to warn the pontiff 
of the danger he ran in offending the only sovereign who had 
the power to protect the interests of the church, and repress 
heresy, in Germany, and, in the same letter, he takes occasion 
to reprobate the interference of the head of the church in the 
wars of temporal princes, and goes so far as to ascribe the 
evils, which have come upon the church in these days, to the 
wrath of heaven at the leagues, offensive and defensive, of the 
late popes with belligerent princes. His dispatches, more- 
over, show that Sir John Russel was ordered to pay fifty or 
sixty thousand crowns as a reward to the army of Bourbon ; 
that Dr. Pace was instructed to urge the Venetians to seize 
the passes of the Alps, and intercept the French reinforcements; 
and that Sir Gregory da Casales had full powers to cooperate 
with Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples, for the defence of that 
kingdom, and the expulsion of the French from the Milanese. 
At the same time, it cannot be denied, that there is some- 
thing suspicious in his often secret interviews with Joacchino • 
and that the arrest of a messenger of De Praet, the imperial 
envoy, and the decyphering of his despatches at the council 
board, though Wolsey endeavored to explain and apologise 
for it as an accident, afforded just cause for serious offence oa 
the part of Spain. 



154 THE BATTLE OF PA VI A. 

The truth I conceive to lie, as it often does, in the middle. 
Henry had probably no idea of betraying his nephew, or of 
taking part with Francis; nor, I think, at this time, had Wol- 
sey any personal feeling against the emperor. The king, how- 
ever, had found out that this interminable conflict in Italy and 
the Netherlands was not bringing him any the nearer to his 
acquisition of the French crown ; while any very decided su- 
periority on the part of either of the belligerents would be apt 
to render him too powerful for the well-being of Europe. His 
minister had experienced the difficulty of extracting money 
from the commons, and both were becoming thoroughly 
sick of a war, the expenses of which fell wholly on England, 
while the rewards were likely to take a very different direc- 
tion. It is possible, too, as suspicions seldom are single or 
one-sided, that they also began to doubt the good faith of 
Charles, as he doubted theirs, and perhaps with as much rea- 
son ; for he had assuredly failed to fulfill his moneyed arrange- 
ments with them. 

The events which followed naturally inclined England to 
the French side of the question ; as it was not her policy to 
allow either party to crush and absorb the other ; even as, long 
before, the conquest of the Milanese by Francis had led her 
to make common cause with Maximilian against him. The 
siege of Pavia had now lasted three months, the besiegers and 
besieged having exhausted all the means then known to the 
art of war in the attack and defence. Don Anthony was 
pressed by famine, and he wrote to the imperial genei-als, — 
" Either come to us, or we must cut our way to you." They 
came to him. ; and on " the evening of St. Matthias' day, being 
the day of the emperor's nativity, in February, 1525, the Mar- 
quis del Guasto leading the vantguard, the Marquis de Pescara 



FRANCIS A PRISONER. 155 

the battail, and Charles de Lannoy, accompanied with Bour- 
bon, the rereward, came in good order near the French army."* 
Francis drew his troops out of the trenches, unadvisedly, and 
gave battle in front of his own artillery, of which he thus lost 
the advantage. His Swiss troops, contrary to the wont of 
Switzers, behaved ill, threw down their arms and fled precip- 
itately from the field ; Don Anthony broke out of the city 
and fell upon the rear of the French, already fighting at disad- 
vantage ; and this not only decided the fate of the day, but 
converted it into a total rout and carnage. The German mer- 
cenaries fought furiously, despairing probably of quarter from 
a German conqueror, should they lay down their arms, and 
were killed, nearly to a man. The French gendarmerie 
charged home, again and again, with the accustomed headlong 
valor of their nation ; but their barbed horses and levelled 
lances availed nothing against the regular, rolling fire of the 
Spanish musketeers, then heard, for the first time, on the battle 
field, the knell of chivalry, and harbinger of victory to disci- 
plined and standing armies. 

Francis fought like a paladin of old, killing the Marquis of 
Civita di St. Angelo, and striking down, according to Hume, 
seven men with his own hand, before his horse was shot under 
him, when he surrendered to Juan de Urbieta, a Guipuscoan, 
and afterward gave up his sword and gauntlet to Diego de 
Avila. He was, for some time, in considerable danger of his 
life, among the irritated soldiery, who, at first, knew not who 
he was, and who, when they discovered the greatness of their 
prize, tore to pieces a great pennache which he wore in his 
helmet, and cut into shreds the surcoat of arms he had on 
above his harness, dividing it among them, as trophies of the 

*Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 128. 



156 FRANCIS A PRISONER. 

day and memorials of the exploit. Many of the French no- 
bles, who might have escaped, hearing that Francis was taken, 
" out of singular piety to their king, returned and yielded them- 
selves, saying they would not return to France, and leave their 
king behind them." The whole remainder of this passage is 
so striking, so graphic, and so interestingly descriptive of the 
sentiments of the men, nobles, and kings of the last days of 
chivalry, when the romance of real life was already fast dying 
out, and the splendor of the warfare of the middle ages was 
well nigh extinct, that, although it is not essential to my direct 
narrative, or intimately connected with the career of Henry, I 
shall make no apology for quoting it entire, from the pages of 
the gallant and eccentric writer, who was himself almost the 
last cavalier of England. 

" The first of the great commanders," he says, " that came 
in, was the Marquis of Pescara, after him Guasta, and others ; 
at last, Bourbon, being armed cap a pi€, and with his sword 
all bloody in his hand, comes toward the king, who hereupon 
demanded his name. Being told, he stopped, if one may be- 
lieve the Spaniard, my author, a little behind the Marquis of 
Pescara. He also, perceiving the king troubled, goes to Bour- 
bon, and after he had told him that the king was there, de- 
manded his sword, which Bourbon, without more adoe rendered; 
and thereupon, running to the king, and lifting up his beaver, 
cast himself on his knees, and humbly demanded the royal 
hand to kiss, which yet the king refused. 

"Hereupon, Bourbon, with tears in his eyes, said, 'Sir, if 
you would have followed my counsel, you should not have 
needed to be in this estate, nor so much blood of the French 
nobility shed, as stains the fields of Italy.' The king, hereupon 
turning his eyes to heaven, now replied only, 'Patience since 



A CAFTIVE KIXG. 157 

fortune hath failed me.' Farther discourse was hindered by 
the Marquis of Pescara, who, desiring the king to mount on 
horseback, conducted him toward Pavia ; but the king entreat- 
ing he might not be kept a prisoner in a town, before which 
he had lately so puissant an army, they brought him to a mon- 
astery adjoining — Henry de Albret, the Comte de St. Paul, 
and divers other prisoners, being delivered to several custodies. 
From hence the king was removed to a strong castle, Piciqui 
ton" — Pizzighitone — "and there kept with a great guard of 
Spaniards, under Hernando de Alancon, till other order came 
from Charles, to whom, immediately after this victory, a mes- 
senger was sent, to acquaint him with the success. In the 
mean time, Francis was used with all respect. For more os- 
tention whereof Charles de Lannoy brought, before supper, the 
bason, the Marquis of Guasta the ewer, and Bourbon the tow- 
el ; which courtesy he requited, by inviting them to sit at ta- 
ble with him; after which, requring some money might be 
furnished to him for play, he passed away the time the most 
chearfully he could."* 

The Henry d' Albret, mentioned above, is the nominal king of 
Navarre, the son of that Jean d' Albret, whose expulsion from his 
dominions, which were thereafter incorporated in the kingdom of 
Spain, by Ferdinand in the first campaigns of Henry's wars, has 
been related above. With him were taken the bastard of Sa- 
voy, and many other noblemen of high degree. The slain num- 
bered eight thousand men, among whom were many captains 
of note, Kichard de la Pole, the pretender of York, being one 
of these, greatly to the delight of Henry. ■}• 

On the news of this victory reaching London, every out- 
ward demonstration of joy was made, though it is more than 

* Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 131 . t Lingard, Hi. 79. 



158 LUKEWARMNESS OF CHARLES. 

doubtful whether Henry was in truth inwardly satisfied, by 
the extraordinary success of his confederate. He went, not- 
withstanding his private sentiments, be they what they might, 
to St. Paul's, in solemn state, where he heard high mass and a 
. te deum sung in honor of the victory ; but this done, without 
a moment's loss of time, he dispatched Cuthbert Tonstal, bishop 
of London, and Sir Richard Wingfield, chancellor of the duchy 
of Lancaster, to Spain, to congratulate Charles on his victory, 
and to concert measures for the prosecution of the war in 
common. 

They were instructed to remind Charles that, as this war 
was carried on in common, so it was for the common benefit 
of both the high contracting parties ; that, hitherto all the ad- 
vantages had fallen to the hand of Spain ; but that the king 
of England nothing doubted his nephew would now fulfill his 
obligations, in aiding to recover for him his throne of France, 
which was his of right, having been wrested from his ances- 
tors, and which was the subject of dispute, for which he had 
gone to war. 

He proposed, therefore, that they should proceed at once to 
invade France, on two sides simultaneously, and meet at Paris ; 
when Henry should ascend the throne of France, as his by in- 
heritance, and Charles recover the Burgundian provinces, which 
had been recently alienated from his sway. 

The ambassadors were also instructed to offer every oppo- 
sition to any plan for the release, or ransoming, of Francis, 
without the consent of Henry, but to claim him as a prisoner 
in common to both the confederates, although he had surren- 
dered to the arms of Spain in particular; and it was added, 
that it would be well that Francis should be delivered over to 
Henry, for safe keeping, in which case the Princess Mary, 



ROYAL SUSPICIONS. 159 

though not yet of marriageable years, should be placed in the 
emperor's hands, under fitting conditions, until she should be 
of a proper age for the celebration of the nuptial ceremony. 

To all this Spain lent a deaf ear. The ambassadors sent 
word to their court, that the emperor was, beyond doubt, treat- 
ing with Francis, to release him on conditions framed solely 
for his own benefit ; and that proposals for a marriage had 
been interchanged, to the detriment of his contract to the 
Princess Mary, with Donna Isabella of Portugal. Thus Henry 
found that, although his alliance with Spain had fully made 
good his vaunting motto, " cui adhereo prceest" he was any- 
thing rather than a gainer, by the precedence he had given to 
his ally ; and, being manifestly deceived, determined at once 
to change his course, and restore the balance of affairs. And, 
in doing this, he was in no respect to blame ; nor can be in 
any degree charged with insincerity, or with breaking faith with 
Charles — it being manifest, on the contrary, that Charles had 
broken faith with him, in converting a war, carried on at com- 
mon risk, common charge, and for the common good, in vio- 
lation of express treaty stipulations, to his own singular ad- 
vantage. 

The clamor against Wolsey and the divorce was the result 
of a happy afterthought on the part of the imperialists, to di- 
vert attention from their own faithlessness ; and it has been 
adopted by English historians, partly from justifiable dislike to 
the character of the man, partly from their blind adoption of 
Polydore Virgil's misrepresentations of his personal enemy, 
and yet more from the polemical partisanship, by which, on 
one side or other of the question, they are all more or less 
deeply tainted, and which renders them all, as to the circum 



1G0 DISSOLUTION OF THE CONTRACT. 

stances of this reign, so irresponsible and untrustworthy, as 
authorities. 

It is clear, however., that Charles did not desire to proceed 
to a rupture with his uncle, or to throw him into the op- 
posite scale, although he might avoid giving him his just share 
of the spoils of victory. For, almost simultaneously with the 
arrival of Tonstal and Wingfield at his court, he wrote per- 
sonally to Henry, demanding the immediate consummation 
of the contracted marriage with Mary, as he either did in truth 
doubt his uncle's good faith to him, or affected to doubt it ; offer- 
ing that she should be at once, on her arrival in the Nether- 
lands, pi'oclaimed empress, and received with the honors due 
to her rank. 

This the king of England, in his turn, peremptorily refused, 
alleging the tender age of the princess as a reason why he 
would not part with her, out of his custody ; yet he offered, at 
the same time, to give her to Charles, as a sort of honorable 
hostage, in exchange for the captive king of France. 

The emperor believed, or affected to believe, that she had 
been, pending her contract with himself, and in violation thereof, 
offered in marriage, both to the king of France and to the king 
of Scotland. The first is palpably untrue. He well knew, 
what was not denied or disguised by any one, that, prior to 
her contract to himself, she had been promised to the dauphin 
of France, which engagement had been broken off, when Henry 
declared war on Francis, in consequence of his invasion of Na- 
varre. Since that period, it is impossible that she could have 
been offered to that prince, since Henry had held no commu- 
nication with him, but had, on the contrary, been pressing him 
to extremity with arms. 

Beyond this casual allusion, there is no mention in history of 



DISSOLUTION OF THE CONTRACT. 161 

an j serious thought having been entertained of allying her to the 
young king of Scotland ; and, indeed, it hardly could have been 
the case ; since, as cousins german, they were within the most 
rigidly prohibited degrees of consanguinity, in the first place ; 
and, in the second, if such an offer had been made, supposing a 
dispensation to be procurable, it is inconceivable that the pro- 
tectors of that prince would not have eagerly embraced it, as 
the surest mode of securing the quiet of his realm, and his 
peaceful succession. 

The more resolutely, however, that Henry refused, the more 
pertinaciously did Charles insist on receiving her hand ; until 
the question was settled by the reply of the English king, that, 
although he intended to keep his word and give his daughter 
to Spain, so soon as she should have attained marriageable 
years, and although he still desired the match, if his nephew 
were averse to waiting for the adolescence of his promised 
bride, he would consent to liberate him from this contract, so 
that he should be at full liberty to wed another woman. 

How much of honesty or faith, beyond the merest self-inter- 
est, there was on the part of either of these monarchs, it is not 
difficult to judge by what followed. An armistice was imme- 
diately agreed on, for the space of forty days, between Henry 
and Francis, and, during the suspension of arms which fol- 
lowed, a treaty, offensive and defensive, was concluded between 
those two monarchs, on terms vastly to Henry's advantage, 
France agreeing to pay him the sum of two millions of crowns, 
by half-yearly instalments of fifty thousand, and moreover, 
one hundred thousand crowns, as an annual pension for the 
whole term of his natural life. To allow Mary, the queen 
dowager of France, Henry's sister, the full profits of her dower, 
and to make good to her all arrears up to the present time. 

n 



1G2 BAD FAITH OF BOTH KINGS. 

To pay the cardinal one hundred and thirty thousand crowns, 
for his resignation of the bishopric of Tournay, and his services 
to the house of France, and, lastly, to engage that the Duke of 
Albany should never return to Scotland, during the minority 
of the present king. This treaty Francis ratified during his 
captivity ; and, in order to ensure the performance of it after 
his release, Louise, the queen mother and queen regnant, sanc- 
tioned it with her oath, as did moreover the principal nobility 
of France, with the great cities of Toulouse, Lyons, Amiens, 
Rheims, Paris, Bourdeaux, Tours, and Rouen ; * all of which 
bound themselves, under actual penalties of forfeiture, not 
only to observe the treaty themselves, but to compel the 
king to observe it. 

A precious commentary on the good faith and honor of 
these high-born and chivalrous nobles, in this age of punctilious 
niceties and affected jealousy of the pun c?' onor, is the fact, 
that, in the very moment, when they were binding themselves 
by solemn oaths to the observation of this engagement with 
their new ally, they were secretly engaged in entering on the 
private register of the parliament of Paris a solemn protest 
against the treaty ; with the deliberate intention that Francis 
should avail himself thereof, in order to escape from the ne- 
cessity of fulfilling all or any of the stipulations, wherever it 
should suit his purpose to do so. 

The sincerity of Charles, in reiterating and pressing his de- 
mands for the immediate solemnization of his marriage with 
the Princess Mary, is sufficiently attested by the fact, that 
within a few weeks after the abrogation of his contract with her 
he actually married Matilda, the infanta of Portugal, who brought 
him a marriage portion of nine hundred thousand crowns. 

*Lingard, Hist. Eng. vi. 84 



FRANCIS RELEASED. 163 

In January of the ensuing year, 1526, finding that in reality 
the strength of France was in no wise reduced by the loss of 
its Swiss and German mercenaries, at Pavia, or even by the 
capture of the king ; that all Europe was alive, since the cap- 
tivity of Francis, to the danger it ran from the ambition at- 
tributed to himself and the great increase of his own power ; 
and that moi'e was to be gained by negotiation than by war, 
Charles began to treat with his prisoner, for conditions on which 
he should be restored to liberty. 

On the seventeenth day of March, he was formally set at lib- 
erty, his two elder sons being delivered up, at the same time, 
as hostages to the officers of the emperor, charged with the 
liberation of the royal prisoner. The ceremonial of his dis- 
missal occurred at the mouth of the river of Fontarabbia, near 
the town of Andaye, in the Lower Pyrenees, the king being 
landed on the French bank at the same moment of time 
when his sons were disembarked on the Spanish shore, the 
boats which conveyed the parties pausing an instant in the mid- 
dle of the stream, in order that the children might kiss the 
hands of their father. 

The conditions on which the French king received his free- 
dom were these, — that, within six weeks after his release, he 
should transfer Burgundy to Charles ; that he should renounce 
his pretensions to the sovereignty of Milan, Naples, and Flan- 
ders, the emperor in like manner renouncing his claims to Bou- 
logne, Ponthieu, and certain lands on both banks of the Somme ; 
that he should restore the Duke of Bourbon to all his droicts 
and possessions in France, and guarantee the emperor against 
ail demands on the part of the king of England, for the arrears 
of hi3 pension ; that he should marry Eleanora, the sister of 
Charles; and lastly, that, failing in ability to perform all. or 



164 PERFIDY OF FRANCIS. 

any of these stipulations, he should place himself again a cap- 
tive in the hands of his adversary.* 

" As soon as Francis came to his own ground, he got hastily 
upon a Turkish and swift horse, and suddenly putting spurs to 
him, if we may believe Sandoval, and casting one of his arms 
over his head, and crying, Je suis le Roy ! Je suis le Roy ! 
posted to St. Juan de Luz, and the next day to Bayonne, 
whither the lady, his mother, and many other principal persons 
with much anxiety awaited hira."f 

Here he swore, in person, to the fulfillment of the treaty, 
which had been negotiated with Henry in his behalf, during 
his imprisonment ; and wrote a letter to that monarch, thank- 
ing him for the exertions which he had made in his behalf, and 
to which he ascribed his own liberation. 

At Bourdeaux, a few days later, he ratified, as a free man, 
the engagements which he had taken to Charles while his cap- 
tive ; and before the ink was well dry on the parchment, pro- 
ceeded, deliberately and impudently, to violate every article 
of the covenant, to which he had sworn. 

More deliberate perjury, more insolent and barefaced vil 
lainy, more cold-blooded swindling, could not be perpetrated, or 
even expected at the hands of the most distinguished financier 
in Wall street, the most respectable bank president, or the 
most eminent railroad director in the United Slates, than was 
resorted to by this great and valiant king — this knight who 
prided himself on having taken his knighthood from the sword 
of Bayard, the chevalier sans peur et sans reprocke — this no- 
ble who plumed himself upon his chivalry and his honor, more 
than upon his nobility or his crown. 

He refused to surrender Burgundy, as contrary to the will 

* Lingard, yii. 8T. t Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 146. 



CLEMENT VII. A PRISONER. 165 

of his subjects and the oath he had taken at his coronation, but 
offered a sum of money, in lieu of it, as his ransom ; and when 
Charles replied indignantly, that he was not a merchant to sell 
his rights and principalities for gold, but a prince waging war 
for the recovery of dominions of which he had been deprived 
wrongfully, and summoned Francis to return in accordance to 
his oath, into captivity, he laughed in his teeth, and negotia- 
ted with Henry for the renewal and prosecution of the war in 
Flanders and in the Milanese. 

In the mean time, Clement VII., who had from the first es- 
poused the party of Francis, entered into a league with that 
prince, on his liberation, with Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, 
and with the Venetians and Florentines, against the emperor. 
But, Francis moving no army to his succor, probably having 
none to move, but wasting his time in idle negotiations with 
Henry, which were never to be fulfilled, the pope was over- 
powered by the imperialists under Moncada, and forced to re- 
tire into the castle of St. Angelo, where he was strictly be- 
sieged ; Rome was stormed by the German mercenaries and 
free companions, led by Bourbon— who fell by a musket bul- 
let, while leading the assault— and was sacked with circum- 
stances of horror, atrocity, cruelty, and licentiousness, by a 
christian army, exceeding all that she had ever undergone at the 
hands of Alaric, or Genseric, the fiercest of her Pagan enemies; 
and, in the end, Clement himself was forced to surrender his 
sacred person, with thirteen of the cardinals, into the hands of 
the imperialists, who detained him in strict captivity. 

The capture and sack of Rome took place on the 10th of 
May, 1527, and, almost at the same moment, conferences 
were in progress at Greenwich, between the Bishop of Tarbez 
and Turenne, on the part of Francis, and Wolsey on Henry's, 



166 THE MASKERS AT GREENWICH. 

by which the Princess Mary was once more betrothed to the 
king of France, who had sworn scarce a year before to wed 
the emperor's sister, Eleanora, or, in case he should find it con- 
venient to keep his oath and marry that lady, then to his son, 
the dauphin. The principal condition was this — that the two 
kings should make joint war on the emperor, and never lay 
down their arms until he should accede to their terms, the 
chief of which was the liberation of the hostage princes, and the 
release of the claim to Burgundy, for a money ransom. A 
grand entertainment was given at the palace of Greenwich, at 
which three hundred lances were broken before supper ; and, 
after a supper a magnificent ball followed, with orations, songs, 
a fight at the barriers in the hall, and a dance of maskers, in 
which the king, the ambassadors, and all the principal nobles 
of the court took a part; and in which, when the ladies un- 
masked, it was found that the Viscount Turenne had for his 
partner the Princess Mary of England, who was still consid- 
ered heiress apparent to the throne, and Henry, for his, the 
beautiful Mistress Anne Boleyn, the lovely and accomplished 
maid of honor to two queens. 

It is significant of Henry's infatuation, and of his probable 
determination, already formed, that it is at these conferences, 
according to his own and Wolsey's statement, that Mary's le- 
gitimacy was called in question by the Bishop of Tarbez, 
through which, as they allege, the king's conscience was awa- 
kened to the illegality and incestuous nature of his connection 
with his late brother's widow. From this time ha began to 
move, secretly, however, and carefully concealing his proceedings 
from the injured queen, for a divorce, in order to gratify at 
once his licentious passion for the charms of the coy and co- 
quettish maid of honor, who would be approached on no terms 



THE KING'S SECRET MATTER. 167 

save those of matrimony, and his scarcely inferior desire for 
heirs male. 

That the Bishop of Tarbez should have raised doubts as to 
the legitimacy of the princess, whom Henry had ever repre- 
sented as his heiress, presumptive, at the least; the legality of 
whose mother's marriage had never been called in question; 
and whom he was himself, then and there, soliciting as a wife 
for the king, his master, who vehemently urged an immedi- 
ate perforznance of the ceremony, despite the immature years 
of the bride, is so unlikely, and as it were ridiculous, that, were 
proof wanting, we might doubt the whole story. 

But.proof is not wanting. The journal of the French en- 
voys, recording all the minute particulars of the conferences 
and all that passed at them is extant ; and there is no mention 
or hint of such a suspicion having been raised, or such a ques- 
tion mooted. 

Evidently, it was a device of the king and Wolsey, to ac- 
count for the origination of such a scruple in the eighteenth 
year of an acknowledged, undisputed, fertile, and apparently 
happy marriage, and for the demand of a divorce, literally 
speaking, after the twelfth hour. 

From this time forth, until the whole of that iniquity was 
accomplished, England had no continental policy, other than 
this of " the king's secret matter," as it was henceforth styled 
by himself and the counsellors in whom he trusted. For this, 
he risked a rupture with one or both of the two puissant 
princes between whom he affected to hold the balance ; for 
this, he attempted to throw dust in the eyes of both, making 
and breaking contracts in a manner, which can only be ex- 
plained by considering how impossible it was that he could do 
ought consistently, or even promise ought, with a prospect of 



168 henry's policy. 

its fulfilment, so long as he had, at his heart, this unworthy 
project determined, but unrevealed ; and for this, in the end, 
he broke with the Holy See, and, at the imminent hazard of a 
religious rebellion, enforced a total change of church polity, if 
not of faith, on his country, certainly before it was prepared in 
general for such a change. 

Both Charles and Francis were, in fact, deeply insulted, if 
not injured, by his proceedings at this juncture ; for the former 
was the nephew of the noble and virtuous lady, the right royal 
queen, whom he now proposed causelessly to set aside, and 
her daughter Mary, whom he now was set on bastardizing, 
was not only his cousin german, but had been, until within a 
very short period, his betrothed wife. 

Francis he was actually, at this very moment, cozening in 
the most impudent and barefaced manner ; as must appear 
the moment his divorce, or his application . for it, should be- 
come public, on the grounds whereby he alleged his marriage to 
have been illegal from the beginning ; since he was actually 
contracting his daughter, as his heiress apparent, either to the 
king himself, or to the dauphin, while he was secretly laboring 
to deprive her of her legitimacy and rights of succession, by 
repudiating her mother. 

It is the consciousness of this intent, doubtless, which made 
Henry so positively refuse the immediate celebration of Mary's 
marriage with the king of Franee; and insist, shortly after- 
ward, on the substitution of the dauphin's name for that of his 
father, in the treaty, and on the insertion therein of a clause to 
the effect, that, if, on account of any event tvhich might come 
to pass, the marriage should not take place, it should cause no 
breach of amity between them, nor in anywise invalidate the 
treaties now to be concluded. 



FIRST LOVE I'OR ANNS BOLEYN. 169 

It is very difficult to believe, when we regard the false and 
temporising policy of Henry, with regard to his daughter's 
marriage, in the presence instance, when the object which he 
had in view and the cause of his apparent inconsistency are pal- 
pable, that his reason for positively refusing two years before 
to sanction the solemnization of the same daughter's marriage 
with Charles, and his breaking with that prince, and altering 
his whole policy, rather than concede the point, was not the 
same as now. 

His excuse, as to the tenderness of her years, according to 
the ideas of that day, was invalid, and may be regarded in the 
light of a mere subterfuge ; since the question was simply of 
solemnization, hot of consummation, and to the former the 
youth of the princess would not have been an obstacle. Taken 
in connection with the known facts, that, Henry had noticed 
Anne Boleyn, during the pageants of the Field of Cloth of 
Gold ; that, he caused her to be recalled from the court of 
France, by name, when he declared war on Francis, in 1522 ; 
that, on her return he placed her in attendance on the queen, 
in a station where he would have constant access to her soci- 
ety ; and, lastly, that from this time, he steadily refused taking 
any step which would preclude the possibility of his setting aside 
the Princess Mary, as illegitimate, his present conduct appears to 
me sufficiently to show that he had meditated the commission 
of this iniquity, long before he broached it to the nearest of his 
confidants, long before it has been suspected by historians that 
he did so. 

Wolsey was now sent to France, with instructions either to 

arrange the marriage on the terms above recited, which were 

in fact adopted, or to break it off altogether. He went most 

reluctantly, knowing that he was sent by the advice of his po- 

H " 



170 wolsey's secret policy. 

iitical enemies, — Norfolk, Suffolk, and Viscount Rocheford-the 
former the uncle, the latter the father of the favorite maid of 
honor, he having recently been raised to the peerage under that 
title, and being shortly afterward elevated to the earldom of 
Wiltshire. 

He went, nevertheless, and succeeded in accomplishing his 
master's ends, as also in procuring the insertion of a clause in 
the treaty, to the effect that, so long as the pope should con- 
tinue a prisoner in the hands of the emperor, the churches of 
France and England should be governed by their own bishops, 
in spite of any bull or breve, which the pontiff should issue, to 
the contrary, during his captivity ; and that, farthermore, any 
judgment, pronounced by Wolsey in his legatine court, should 
be carried into execution, whatever the rank of the party con- 
demned, without regard to any Papal prohibition.* This 
clause, though its meaning was, probably, kept a secret from 
Francis, was evidently intended to give absolute power to 
Wolsey to try, in his own court, without recourse, the ques- 
tion of the validity of Katharine's marriage, and to grant a final 
divorce. 

To this step, Wolsey had now, though reluctantly, brought 
himself to agree, though not with a view to the king's mar- 
riage with Anne ; for, reckoning on his master's wonted fickle- 
ness of humor, and probably underrating the lady's powers of 
resistance to her royal lover's passion, he calculated fully on 
his being soon weaned from this short-lived folly, and went so 
far as to speculate on his marriage with Rene£, the younger 
sister of Claude, queen of France, and even to assure Louise, 
the queen mother, and probably Francis also, that such a con- 
nection, between the two crowns, would certainly and speedily 
*Lingard, vi. 123; and state papers quoted by him. 



MARCH OF LAUTRECH. 171 

ensue. On his return to England, he learned Henry's determi- 
nation, and the inutility of attempting to oppose it. He went 
so far, indeed, as to implore the king on his knees to abandon 
the project ; but on finding him resolute, and knowing the 
perduracy and violence of his resolution, he yielded his own 
judgment and conscience, and served his master to the last, 
more truly, as he himself confessed too late, than he served 
his God, until his bad ends were accomplished^ But not so 
truly as to save himself innocent from the beautiful favorite's 
displeasure ; for Anne learned, from her lover, the opposition 
of the cardinal, and never forgave it, as it seems she never for- 
gave any one, whom she thought an enemy. From this day, 
therefore, although it was by his means, solely, that the di- 
vorce was accomplished, and Anne's marriage rendered possi* 
ble, Wolsey's downfall was dated. From this day, likewise, 
may be dated the death-sentence of the venerable Fisher, bishop 
of Rochester, and of the excellent Sir Thomas More ; for they 
had both given opinions adverse to the divorce, and, although 
they continued to hold office, and even apparently to enjoy 
the royal favor, they were both inscribed on the black-list of 
the revengeful mistress, who never rested from her ill offices 
toward them, until their heads had fallen. 

The first overt act of the king's, after the ratification of this 
treaty, was the march of a French army under Lautrech, ac- 
companied by Sir Robert Jerningham, the English commis- 
sary, with two hundred English horse, across the Alps, with 
the avowed purpose of liberating the pope from his Spanish 
captivity. But, although the French general speedily overran 
Lombardy, and, leaving the strong garrison of Milan unreduced 
in his rear, advanced to Piacenza, he lingered at that place, 
with inexplicable fatuity, until the pontiff, despairing of release 



172 ESCAPE OP POPE CLEMENT. 

by means of the allies, began to treat of ransom with his cap- 
tors, and suddenly, finding their vigilance relaxed, succeeded in 
making his escape, disguised as a gardener, to the strong town 
of Orvieto, where he was waited on by the English envoys, 
with congratulations, and solicitations to empower Wolsey, 
or Staphileo, to hear and decide the cause of the divorce, and 
to grant a dispensation to Henry, to marry any other woman 
whomsoever, even if she were related to him in the first de- 
gree, provided always, that she were not the widow of his 
brother, or if she had been contracted to another man. 

The object of these forms, in order to render possible his 
contemplated marriage with Anne, who was not obviously 
related to the king in any degree, nor notoriously contracted 
to any other person, will be explained hereafter, when I come 
to treat of her fortunes and character. In this memoir of 
Henry, I restrict myself to my plan of regarding his political 
career alone, and his relations to his own people and to for- 
eign governments ; reserving, as much as possible, the details 
of his private and domestic life, and the circumstances con- 
nected with his queens, to be treated of in connection with those 
ladies, and touching on his concerns with them, only so far as 
they are mixed up with affairs of state. 

The pope at once signed two instruments to the required ef- 
fect, but requested that, for the present, they might be kept se- 
cret ; and afterward, at Henry's request, appointed a cardinal, 
to be chosen by Henry himself, out of six of that rank, who 
should try the cause in conjunction with Wolsey. It is worthy 
of remark here, in connection with what followed in regard to 
Henry's rupture with Rome, that Clement, who was favorably 
disposed and bound by gratitude to him, from the beginning, 
warned him " That he was taking the most circuitous route," 



SIEGE OF NAPLES. 173 

and that, if he proceeded as he proposed, " it was plain, that 
by appeals, exceptions, and adjournments, the cause must be 
protracted tor many years,"* 

In the meantime, the allied army, which was besieging Na- 
ples by land, while Pedro Lando, with thirty Venetian galleys, 
was blocking it by sea, so that it seemed impossible that the 
town should hold out any longer, was attacked by a terrible 
disease, known as the black, or the sweating, plague ; which 
afterward spread throughout Europe, and was, especially in En- 
gland, very fatal. Of this disease died, first, Sir Kobert Jer- 
ningham, then Carew, his lieutenant, and, lastly, Lautrech him- 
self, the great French commander ; after which the army with- 
drew, pursued and sorely harassed by the imperialists, to Al- 
essandria, where it passed the winter of 1528 ;the war in Italy, 
in fact, terminating with this disastrous and inglorious cam- 
paign. For although hostilities nominally continued between 
Spain and England, an armistice for eight months was conclu- 
ded between Henry and Margaret, the governess of the Neth- 
erlands, by which the war in those parts was concluded; and af- 
ter the expiration of the year no more ti'oops were sent out 
from England, nor did Henry ever again earnestly engage in 
active operations on the continent. 

Erorn this time forth, his domestic affairs, and his " secret 
matter," completely occupied him, the more so as Clement's 
prediction was fulfilled to the letter, and years elapsed before 
the cause could be decided. In April, 1528, plenary powers 
were issued to Wolsey to try the cause, without judicial forms, 
to pronounce according to his own conscience, without regard 
to exception or appeal, the marriage valid or invalid, and the 

* Strype, i. 46, T5. 



174 henry's latent character. 

issue thereof legitimate or illegitimate, according to the desire 
of Henry. 

The king and Anne were at first in ecstaeies, imagining that 
the whole matter was decided, and all difficulty at an end; 
but, at this moment Wolsey took the alarm. If he granted 
the divorce, he was ruined with both France and Spain, and 
all for the sake of one, from whom he was well assured he had 
no kindness to expect ; for he well knew that Anne Boleyn 
hated him, with a perfect and sufficient hatred. If he refused 
the divorce, he lost Henry's favor, lost his position, his power, 
his fortunes, probably his head ; for, although the king had not 
yet shown himself the sanguinary executioner into which he, a 
few years later, degenerated, Wolsey unquestionably knew his 
nature, and had discovered the latent instincts of the royal ti- 
ger, which needed only to be thwarted, that they should dis- 
play themselves in all their brutal force and fury. 

It is probable, also, that Wolsey's conscience did, in truth, 
wince. For he was not a cruel, nor, as it seems to me, a bad- 
hearted, or deliberately unjust, man. Could he have been both 
great and good, at once, I think he would have desired to be 
good. Perhaps, if he could have been innocent and safe, he 
would have let the greatness go by, and have continued in- 
nocent. 

But his ambition and his vanity cried out ; and he felt, as 
all ambitious, proud, vain men must naturally feel, that it is a 
far harder trial to fall from achieved greatness, than to have re- 
frained from striving to achieve it. Nor was it an easy, or in- 
deed a possible thing to continue innocent, with any certainty 
of preserving his head, for any one whom Henry had resolved 
to have guilty for his own advantage. 

He now temporized; required that Cardinal Campeggio 



DELAYS IN THE DIVORCE. 175 

should be joined to him in the commission, as more experienced 
than himself in the laws of Rome ; and wrote to the pope, im- 
ploring him to issue a bull, decreeing the divorce and granting 
the dispensation, which he pledged himself never to divulge ; 
as he required it, he said, only as a safeguard to his own con- 
science, without which he could not decide so great a question; 
not as a justification to the world. 

The pretence deceived not the pope, nor his advisers. It was, 
in fact, too shallow to deceive any one. It was palpable, that 
the bull once in his hands, so soon as his decision should be 
impugned, he would produce it as his authority and justifica- 
tion. Late in the autumn, Campeggio arrived in London, the 
bearer of the bull which had been so earnestly desh'ed ; but 
his instructions were distinct, that, although he might read it 
aloud to the king and his minister, he was on no account to 
give it into their hands, but rather to commit it to the flames. 

The queen stood resolutely on the defensive, positively re- 
fusing to do the smallest act, which should invalidate her daugh- 
ter's legitimacy, or to admit that she had been living, for 
eighteen years, with Henry, as his mistress and not his wife; 
she produced the original breve of dispensation, granted for 
her marriage by Julius II., to which no objections could be 
made, and demanded that she should be allowed advocates of 
her nephew's subjects, who should not be liable to the influ- 
ence of the king or his minister. 

Clement, meanwhile, fell ill again, and was given over for 
dead, but again recovered. The emperor, who had regained 
the ascendant over French arms in Italy, by liberal and kindly 
conduct toward the pontiff" obtained a counter influence to that 
which Francis and Henry had hitherto exei-cised over him. 
He, moreover, succeeded in making peace, the treaty of which 



176 GROUNDS FOR THE DIVORCE. 

was signed early in the year 1529., with that prince. The 
pope, moreover, remained firm and immovable. "Campeggio 
adhered obstinately to established forms ; and neither the 
wishes of the king, nor the entreaties of Wolsey, nor the ex- 
hortations of Francis, could accelerate his progress." 

On the eighteenth of June, the court met to try the case in 
the parliament chamber at Black Friars. The king and queen 
were both cited to appear. The latter, on doing so, protested 
against the judges, denied the jurisdiction of the court, and ap- 
pealed to Rome. On the following day, she cast herself at 
the king's feet, uttered a pathetic appeal to his sympathies, and 
then with a low obeisance retired, whispering to an attendant, 
when an officer was sent to recall her, " I never before dispu- 
ted the will of my husband, and shall take the first opportu- 
nity to ask pardon for this disobedience." 

On her refusal to appeal', either in person, or by attorney, 
she was pronounced contumacious ; and the trial proceeded in 
her absence, Henry's counsellors demanding the abrogation of 
the marriage on these three grounds : 1. That her marriage 
with Arthur having been consummated, her subsequent mar- 
riage with Henry was contrary to divine law, and therefore 
null and void from the beginning ; 2. That the bull of Pope 
Julius II. had been obtained under false pretences ; and, 
3. That the breve of dispensation, produced by Katharine, 
which was not liable to the defects of the bull, was a forgery. 
As Katharine had declined the jurisdiction of the court, no re- 
ply was made by her to these allegations; but Campeggio did 
not choose to pronounce judgment, and solicited the pope to 
call the cause before himself. In the mean time, the term 
expired, and the matter was adjourned until the following 
October. 



INSULT TO CAMPEGGIO. 177 

Henry and Anne were furious. The lady extorted from 
her lover a promise never again to see Wolsey, and the tyrant 
kept his word. When the Michaelmas term arrived, Cam- 
peggio bade his brother cardinal farewell, and departed for 
Rome, but was grievously insulted at Dover, by the officers 
of the customs, who forcibly entered his apartments and 
searched his baggage, on the pretext that he was carrying off 
Wolsey's treasures, but in reality with the expectation of find- 
ing papers, of which the king desired to make himself master. 
Nothing, however, was discovered, and the only consequences 
of the operation were the converting Campeggio into an overt 
enemy, and rendering it more difficult for Clement to favor 
Henry in the suit, as he doubtless desired to do, if he might 
find a way of doing so in safety. 

From this time, however, the fall of Wolsey must be da- 
ted. He had, it is true, strained every point, sacrificed con- 
science, duty, truth, used every solicitation, every exertion, left 
no stone unturned, to gratify the will of his exacting, unrelent- 
ing master. But he had failed. It was known that he had 
been originally, probably was still, opposed on principle, and 
in his own heart, to Henry's marriage with Anne. Therefore, 
she hated him, and it would seem that, under her soft, seduc- 
tive, gentle exterior, she concealed a nature almost as unfor- 
giving as her royal lover's. Henry, probably at her sugges- 
tion, was led to mistrust the sincerity of the cardinal's en- 
deavors, perhaps even to suspect him of double dealing. His 
want of success was attributed to want of faith, and he was 
marked for destruction. 

On the very day when he opened his court, as chancellor, 
two bills were filed against him by the attorney-general, Hales, 
under what was commonly called the statute praemunire, which 
H* 12 



178 FALL OF WOLSEY. 

he was accused of having transgressed in his legatine court. 
Nothing could have been more iniquitous than the whole trans- 
action. It was doubtful whether that statute had any applica- 
tion to the court of the pope's legate. At all events, he had 
the royal license previously obtained, and the sanction of par- 
liament; besides, that immemorial usage was in his favor. 
He knew too well, however, the temper of the royal brute, 
fiercer and more untamable than the animal which has ob- 
tained the title, and the pitch of frenzy to which opposition 
aroused him. He declined, therefore, to plead even the royal 
license, but owned his guilt, resigned his seals, submitted to 
every demand, divested himself of all his personal property, 
granted to the king by indenture the revenues of all his bene- 
fices and church preferments, and threw himself wholly and 
unconditionally on Henry's mercy, professing his willingness 
to give up even the shirt from his back, and to live in a her- 
mitage, if Henry would but cease from his displeasure.* But 
that, it was not in the nature of the regal monster to do. 
Fluctuate he might, and in the variations of his fickle, cruel 
mood show glimpses of relenting. But to one, who had, in 
truth, once incurred his resentment, or, what was the same 
thing, his suspicion, he relented never. The king himself took 
possession of his palace at York House, and the cardinal was 
banished to Esher, a large, unfurnished house, where he dwelt 
for above three months, with his large family, destitute of 
every comfort and convenience, neglected by his friends — if a 
fallen favorite have any friends — forgotten by the king, but 
unforgotten by his enemies, who never ceased to possess 
Henry's ear, with all ill rumors against him. 

♦ The Bishop of Bayonne. Quoted by Legrand, iii. ST1; apud Lingard, vi. 1S8. 



FEAR OF WOLSEY 's ENEMIES. 179 

At last, he fell ill of a fever, and was like to die ; and, then, 
for a moment the king was moved, or seemed to be so. He 
sent three physicians to attend him, with a gracious message, 
and he compelled the fair Boleyn to present the sick man with 
a tablet of gold in token of reconciliation. Shortly after his 
recovery, by the aid of Cromwell, he effected an arrangement 
with his enemies, on granting them, or their friends, annuities 
out of the bishopric of Winchester, in virtue of which he was 
allowed to retain the jurisdiction of his archbishopric of York, 
both temporal and spiritual, and an annuity of a thousand 
marks from the bishopric of Winchester, making over to the 
king, in consideration thereof, for the term of his natural life, 
all his revenues, patronage, and rights arising from that see, 
or from his abbacy of St. Albans. For a short time, he was 
allowed to reside at Eichmond ; but his enemies feared his 
residence so near to the ear of Henry, being constantly in ter- 
ror that he would recover his influence with his master, who 
ever seemed to have a yearning toward his old and faith- 
ful servant ; and procured an order that he should repair to 
his own archbishopric of York, and reside within its limits. 

Here he conducted himself with such a mixture of quiet 
dignity, liberal generosity, christian charity, and clerical pro- 
priety, that he gained all hearts. He became beloved, alike 
by the rich and the poor, and those who had the most hated 
him in his prosperity, the most inclined toward him in his ad- 
versity. Still Anne's word was ever against him. She was 
the " night crow," as he said, that ever whispered in the royal 
ear misrepresentations of his most loyal and most virtuous ac- 
tions. I cannot hold it doubtful, that, at this moment, it was 
the very prudence and decorum of his behavior, busying him- 
self, solely, with the spiritual and temporal concerns of his 



180 WOLSEy's ARREST AT CAMWOOD. 

diocese, that doubly armed his enemies against him, fearful 
that the applause he was acquiring " from mouths of wisest 
censure," would, in the end, reinstate him in the royal favor. 

On the 7th of November, he had invited the nobility of his 
county to assist at his installation ; on the fourth, he was ar- 
rested at his residence at Cawood, on a charge of high treason. 
The charge has never been explained, and was, unquestionably 
groundless. If there were any shadow of cause for suspicion, 
it must have arisen from the fact of his correspondence with 
the pope, with Francis, and with Louise, the queen mother of 
France ; all of them friends and allies of his master. He as- 
serted, himself, and there is no reason to doubt it, that the ob- 
ject of'this correspondence was to induce those illustrious per- 
sonages to interest themselves in reconciling him with Henry, 
apart from whose favor it would really seem that he could not 
exist, more than a tropical plant, deprived of sunshine. 

The closing scene of this great man — for, if he had his errors 
of ambition, vanity, and pride, as who hath not his errors 1 he 
was still both a great man and a great minister — is so admira- 
bly and so curtly told by Lingard* that I make no apology 
for quoting the passage entire. 

" His health," says he, (he suffered much from the dropsy,) 
" would not allow him to travel with expedition ; and at Shef- 
field park, a seat of the Earl of Shrewsbury, he was seized 
with a dysentery, which confined him a fortnight. As soon 
as he was able to mount his mule, he resumed his jour 
ney ; but feeling his strength rapidly decline, he said to the 
Abbot of Leicester, as he entered the gate of the monastery, 
'Father Abbot, I am come to lay my bones among you.' He 
was immediately carried to his bed ; and, the second day, see- 

* Vol. iv. 163. 



DEATH OF WOLSEY. 181 

ing Kingston, the lieutenant of the tower, in his chamber, he 
addressed him in these well-known words: 'Master Kings- 
ton, I pray you have me commended to his majesty ; and be- 
seech him on my behalf to call to mind all things that have 
passed between us, especially respecting good Queen Katha- 
rine and himself; and then shall his grace's conscience know 
whether I have offended him or not. He is a prince of most 
royal courage; rather than miss any part of his will, he will 
endanger one half of his kingdom; and I do assure you, I have 
often kneeled before him, sometimes for three hours together, 
to persuade him from his appetite, and could not prevail. And, 
Master Kingston, had I but served God as diligently as I have 
served the king, he would not have given over my gray hairs. 
But this is my just reward for my pains and study, not re- 
garding my service to God, but only my duty to my prince.' 
Having received the last consolations of religion, he expired 
the next morning, in the sixtieth year of his age. The best 
eulogy on his character is to be found in the contrast between 
the conduct of Henry, before and after the cardinal's fall. 
As long as Wolsey continued in favor, the royal passions were 
confined within certain bounds ; the moment his influence was 
extinguished, they burst through every restraint, and by their 
caprice and violence alarmed his subjects, and astonished the 
other nations of Europe." 

His death, of course, induced a total change of the royal 
councils. Sir Thomas More became chancellor ; Sir William 
Eitzwilliam succeeded More, as treasurer of the household, and 
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster ; Dr. Stephen Gardiner 
was appointed secretary to the king. The Duke of Norfolk, 
Anne's uncle, as president of the council, her father, the Vis- 
count Rochefort, lately created Earl of Wiltshire, and the 



182 BREVE BY POPE CLEMENT. 

Duke of Suffolk, of the same party, retained their places, and 
ruled the council, as absolutely as Anne ruled the king. From 
this time forth, Henry held no intercourse with his queen ; 
while on the contrary, Anne, who had ceased altogether from 
residing in her father's house, lived constantly under the same 
roof with him, ate at the same table with him, assisted at his 
councils, was present with him on all his journeys, at all pub- 
lic ceremonies, at all his parties of pleasure. In a word, when 
we find, as we shall see subsequently, that, when this, at the 
least, doubtful and indecorous mode of life had continued three 
whole years, she was secretly married to the king, on the 25th 
of January, which marriage was not acknowledged until the 
first of June, and bore him the Princess Elizabeth, on the 7th 
day of September, 1533, all these events taking place previ- 
ously to the annulling of his marriage with Katharine, we shall 
have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion, that she was 
living with him in open adultery, as his avowed mistress, 
though doubtless under the most positive promises of being 
raised to the throne, so soon as a divorce should be obtained, 
which Henry certainly expected to occur much sooner, and to 
be effected much more easily than proved to be the case. 

Three years elapsed, in fact, during which, so far from ma- 
king any progress toward gaining his object, he was constantly 
losing ground. In 1530, a reconciliation took place between 
the courts of Rome and Madrid, and a congress occurring be- 
tween the emperor and the pope, at Bologna, Henry, hoping 
to gain his end by mollifying Charles, sent an embassy, at the 
head of which he placed the Earl of Wiltshire, a choice which 
only irritated Charles, who induced Clement to issue a breve 
forbidding Henry to marry until his sentence should be pub- 



THE QUESTION OF THE DIVORCE. 183 

lished, and ordering him to treat Katharine as his lawful wife. 
In England, where his influence would have seemed the most 
certain to prevail, he only at length extorted a favorable an- 
swer from the universities by threats and even open violence. 
In Italy, by dint of immense bribery, he obtained favorable 
decisions from Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara ; but in the Ger- 
manic states he could not gain the assentient voice of a single 
public body. Even the reformed churches and divines, hos- 
tile as they were to the pope and the emperor, openly and 
clamorously opposed the divorce. Luther himself wrote to 
the royal agent, that he " would, rather than approve of such 
a divorce, permit the king to wed a second queen, and, after 
the example of the patriarchs and kings of old, to have two 
wives or queens at the same time." * 

Francis he bribed, by a surrender of his claim for five hun- 
dred thousand crowns due to him by treaty, by the present of 
a lily of diamonds pledged to his father by Charles and Max- 
imilian, for- fifty thousand crowns of gold, and by a farther loan 
of four hundred thousand crowns, to exert his influence over 
the fourteen French universities, which the Bishop of Bayonne 
had already been soliciting in his behalf. Still he advanced so 
little, that, in reply to a letter to the pope, which he procured 
to be written in the name of the nation, signed by all the 
peers, temporal and spiritual, and by a certain number of the 
principal commoners, urging an immediate decision of this 
vexed question, in the king's favor, he received this cold reply 
■ — that Clement " was ready to proceed with the cause imme 
diately, and to show to the king every indulgence and favor 
compatible with justice; one thing only he begged, in re- 

*Lutheri Epist. Hate, 1717, p. 29. 



184 CROMWELL ADVISES HENR\. 

turn, that they would not require of him through gratitude to 
man, to violate the immutable commandments of God." * 

For once Henry wavered. He fancied the difficulties insur- 
mountable, and told his confidants that he had been deceived ; 
that he should never have sought for a divorce, had he not 
been led to believe that the pope's concurrence might easily 
be obtained, and that, finding that assurance false, he was 
minded to abandon the attempt forever. He had, in fact, car- 
ried his suit with Anne, had been disappointed by her not 
bearing him a son, or appearing likely to do so ; and his ar- 
dor for the divorce, as his passion for Anna, were on the 
decline. 

But at this moment, Cromwell, who had risen, from being a 
servitor of Wolsey, on the ruin of . his patron, instigated un- 
doubtedly by Anne and her friends, suggested to Henry the 
wisdom of following the example of the German princes, sha- 
king off the yoke of Borne, declaring himself the head of the 
church within his own realm, and taking into his own hands 
all the powers and privileges usurped by the pontiff The' av- 
aricious and ambitious tyrant listened in astonishment and de- 
light. It was not now his passion for Anna only — that was, 
perhaps, half satiated, and required some newer stimulus — it 
was his greed of gold, his burning thirst for authority and 
power, that were now awakened. Cromwell was sworn, at 
once, a member of the privy council, and instructed forthwith 
to take measures for carrying out his project. 

The same iniquitous plan was resorted to now, as had been 
adopted in the prosecution of Wolsey. By submitting to the 
cardinal's jurisdiction, all the clergy of the realm had become 
equal participators in the crime of which he had confessed him- 

tLingard, vi 174, quoting from Burnet and Herbert of Cberhury. 



SUPREME HEAD OP THE CHURCH. 185 

self guilty, as offending against the statutes of praemunire. 
And the attorney-general was instructed to file a bill, in the 
king's bench, against the whole body of the church of England. 
Terror-stricken, astonished, and deprived of any defence by 
Wolsey's plea of guilty, they offered to pay a hundred thou- 
sand pounds for a free pardon, but the proposal was refused, 
except on the condition that, in the preamble to the grant, 
they should acknowledge the king to be " the protector and 
only supreme head, under God, of the clergy and church of 
England." 

After a consultation and conferences, which lasted three 
whole days, Henry consented to the insertion of the words, 
" so far as the law of Christ allows," previous to " supreme 
head ; " by which, in fact, the whole recognition was invalida- 
ted, since it was clearly left to individual judgment to decide 
whether the " laws of Christ" would, or would not, allow the 
king's supremacy. As yet, this was a matter of no impor 
tance, for Henry had not yet resolved on seizing either the 
privileges, or the possessions, of the church ; and, whatever he 
might contemplate for the future, only aimed for the present 
at intimidating the pope into submission to his will. This, 
however, he failed to do ; and, in the month of January, 1531, 
the inhibitory breve, which had been issued the preceding year, 
was published in Flanders, forbidding the king to proceed in 
his divorce of Katharine, or in his marriage with Anne ; and, 
although he made every effort to induce the injured queen to 
submit her question to the decision of four temporal and four 
spiritual peers, he availed nothing, that noble-spirited woman 
remaining constant in her determination to " abide, until the 
church of Rome, which was privy to the beginning, shall have 
made an end of the marriage." In this year, Henry would 



186 PAYMENT OF ANNATES EORIDDEN. 

have bestowed on Reginald Pole, son of Sir Richard Pole, and 
Margaret, duchess of Salisbury — who was daughter of that 
George, duke of Clarence, of Malmsey memory, drowned in 
the tower by his own brother's orders — the bishoprics of York 
and Winchester, vacant since Wolsey's death, if that spirited 
youth, bred to the church in the university of Padua, and des- 
tined by the king, his kinsman, to the highest dignities in his 
possession, woidd have consented to give his decision in favor 
of the divorce. This, after many struggles with himself and 
debates with his brethren, he could not prevail on himself to 
do, and, the king not wholly, even yet, withdrawing his favor, 
was permitted to leave England and return to Italy, where he 
had commenced them, for the prosecution of his studies. The 
vacant sees were conferred on Lee, and on Gardiner, the latter 
of whom had hoped to gain, and might have succeeded in gain- 
ing, the influence of Wolsey, had he not been outstripped by 
the growing predominance of the yet more ambitious and un- 
scrupulous Cromwell. 

In the meantime, Henry, despairing of bringing Clement to 
terms by conciliation, refused to plead in person at Rome, or 
to send an excusator, endowed with full powers, to account for 
the cause of his absence, and convoked his parliament. They, 
assembling in the beginning of January, passed a series of 
bills, which were the commencement of that great revolution, 
which ended in the total abolition of Popish power in the Brit- 
ish empire. The first of these prohibited all payment of the 
annates, or first fruits of the Episcopal sees, to the see of Rome, 
by the English bishops, on pain of forfeiture to the king by 
the delinquent of the profits of his church preferments. The 
second provided for the consecration of future English bishops, 
by the archbishop, or two other prelates, in default of the issue, 



ECCLESIASTICAL MEASURES. 187 

or in despite of the prohibition, of the necessary Romish bulls. 
A third measure, yet more hostile to the pretensions of Rome, 
was the compulsory assent of the clergy to a declaration, that 
they would never more enact, publish, or enforce their consti- 
tutions, without the royal authority and assent ; and that they 
would submit those, now in existence, to a committee of thirty- 
two, half laymen and half clergymen, with the king superin- 
tending, in person, for rejection, confirmation, or alteration. 
And this, thenceforth, became the law of the land ; and here- 
after the bishop of Rome ceased, in fact, and by law, to hold 
any jurisdiction, spiritual or temporal, within the dominions of 
the English crown. 

No idea, it must be observed, had been as yet broached of 
introducing Protestant or Lutheran doctrines into England ; 
the king, to gratify whose passions the whole machinery had 
been set in motion by Cromwell, was bitterly and personally 
hostile to Luther, and came to be, so soon as Lutheranism 
showed itself at all prominently in his dominions, a cruel per-' 
secutor of the professors of those tenets ; the principal oppo- 
nents of Henry's pretensions to church supremacy were not 
Lutherans, but Papists ; and, whatever advances had been 
made, thus far, to the abolition of a Romish and the establish- 
ment of an Anglican head to the church of St. Peter within 
the dominions of England, none whatever had occurred, toward 
the creation of a Protestant church of England. On the con- 
trary, for some time after this date, Henry himself professed 
his willingness to be reconciled to Clement and the church, 
and would probably have carried out such a reconciliation, had 
not events occurred, which precipitated his course of action, 
and led him to steps, which rendered the pope's assistance un- 



188 SECOND MEETING OF KINGS. 

necessary, as after circumstances made it also undesirable, if 
not impossible. 

During the summer of this year, 1532, Henry having re- 
newed his treaties of defensive alliance with Francis, against 
the emperor, Charles, had several times solicited a personal 
interview with the king ; but he now urged it so vehemently, 
that it could not be declined ; pressing, at the same time, that 
Anne Boleyn should be invited to be present, and proposing 
that Francis should bring with him the queen of Navarre, since 
he declined meeting the queen Eleanora of France, as being 
sister to his enemy, Charles. 

Whether Anne was invited, does not appear, although cir- 
cumstances indicate that she was not, since the queen of Na- 
varre did not accompany Francis to the interview, though 
Anne Boleyn was present, as Marchioness of Pembroke; which 
dignity, with remainder to the heirs male of her body forever, 
and a pension of two thousand pounds per annum, had been 
■conferred on her in the month of September of the preceding 
year. 

The real cause of this meeting of the kings, was Henry's de- 
sire to secure the cooperation of Francis in discarding the au- 
thority of the pope, and the wish of Francis to reconcile the 
king of England with Clement, on terms agreeable to the lat- 
ter — the pretext was the formation of a confederacy against the 
Turks, and the fearful increase of their dominion. 

At a mask, given by Henry to his brother king, at Calais, 
the French monarch danced with the lovely Anne, and on the 
following morning presented her with " a jewel worth fifteen 
thousand crowns,"* as the old chronicler has it. And, a day or 

* Hall's Chronicles, 106. 



ANNE HENRY'S MISTRESS. 189 

two afterward, the two princes separated, in great amity ; 
Francis having written to Rome complaining of the affront, 
offered to all crowned heads, by the citation of Henry to ap- 
pear out of his own dominions, and inviting the pope to meet 
the kings at Marseilles, there to arrange all matters amicably ; 
and Henry having promised Francis that he would proceed no 
farther in his matters, either of divorce or marriage, until after 
the proposed congress should have been held. 

It should have been stated above, in the order of events, that 
in July of 1531, on her refusal to submit the question of her 
marriage to an English board of arbitration, Katharine had re- 
ceived an order to quit the palace at Windsor, whereupon she 
retired to Ampthill, declaring that " go where she might, she 
should still be his lawful queen." On her withdrawal, Anne 
unquestionably occupied her place, if not as wife, ostensibly as 
companion, and scarce unavowedly as mistress, of the king. In 
proof of which, though Protestant historians have endeavored 
to discredit and conceal the truth, in their strange misconcep- 
tion that Anne, Lutheran herself, converted Henry by love of 
her to that doctrine, it may be brought to memory that, prior 
to this conference of the kings at Boulogne and Calais, the pope 
issued a breve denouncing excommunication against both the 
king and his mistress, as she is termed, unless within one 
month they should cease from cohabitation ; and pronouncing 
their marriage, should they presume to marry in defiance of 
his inhibitory mandate, invalid and of no effect. 

But now, that occurred which rekindled all Henry's passion 
for the mistress, of whom he seemed more than half satiated, 
and redoubled his impatience and his eager cravings for instant 
divorce. Anne, at length, informed him that she was in that 
way " which ladies wish to be, who love their lords," and 3 



190 HENRY'S MARRIAGE TO ANNE. 

moreover, that there was no time to be lost, if he would assure 
the legitimacy of the long wished for heir to the throne— for heir 
they were resolved that it should be. Accordingly, his prom- 
ise to the French king must be broken ; and, on the twenty- 
fifth of January, 1533— this date is incontestably shown to be 
correct by a letter, still extant, from Archbishop Crammer to 
his friend Hawkins, the emperor's ambassador ; though Henry 
and his courtiers asserted that the marriage was celebrated 
November 14, 1532, the day on which the king and Anne sailed 
from Calais, after his interview with the king of France — : 
at an early hour in the morning, Henry was formally espoused 
by Rowland Lee, one of the royal chaplains, to the beautiful 
marchioness, in the presence of Anne Savage, afterward Lady 
Berkeley, her train-bearer, and of Norris and Heneage, two 
grooms of the bed-chamber. 

It is pretended that the marriage had taken place long be- 
forehand Was concealed in order to give time for the occur- 
rence of the previously arranged meeting with the pope at 
Marseilles, but, that meeting being deferred, was now necessa- 
rily proclaimed, in order to save the lady's reputation, and se- 
cure the legitimacy of the offspring. How either reputation 
could be saved, or legitimacy secured, does not appear ; nor 
could it have occurred to any one, who was not so thoroughly 
consistent in inconsistency as Henry, to set up such a defence 
for either ; when he was yet held fast by marriage to another 
woman, toward divorce from whom he had made no progress ; 
and, when in denying his paramour to be his adulterous con- 
cubine, he only asserted himself and her to be guilty of un 
qualified bigamy. 

The marriage, however, must now be validated at all cost. 



cranmer's elevation. 191 

especially since the existence or non-existence of a king of En- 
gland was in posse, if not in esse. 

During the past year, Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, 
who had contended in vain with Wolsey, and been driven 
from the court on his ascendency, died ; and " to the sur- 
prise and sorrow" of many, Henry determined to raise 
Cranraer— whose zeal in favor of the divorce, his book in 
defence thereof, and his bold advocacy of the measure at 
Rome, had conciliated both the king's and the favorite's re- 
gard-though he had not long been in holy orders, to that high 
dignity. 

This man was, doubtless, in heart a reformer and Lutheran, 
and had, since taking orders, married, contrary to all the can 
ons of the church, the niece of Osiander. Yet this very mar 
ried priest had now the infamy and audacity to take the oath 
of obedience to the pope, and to receive the consecrated pallium 
at the hands of his delegates, having previously declared, in 
the presence of four witnesses and a notary, in the chapter- 
house at Westminster, that by the oath of obedience to the 
pope, which he swore for form's sake, he intended nothing 
against the king's sole supremacy, as head of the church of 
Christ, or against any reforms, which he might thereafter judge 
it necessary to make. 

A worthy commencement, truly, for a prelate, who, in his 
heart, a convert to the new learning, as Lutheranism was then 
called, was so base, as to preach constantly, during the life of 
his tyrant master, doctrines and a faith which he secretly dis- 
believed and disavowed, and so doubly base and barbarous, as 
to condemn to the fagot and the stake his brother believers, 
who had the constancy to assert, in the midst of the fire, the 
creed which he, like the devils, believed in trembling, while 



192 THEOLOGIANS AND CANONISTS. 

he persecuted it to the utmost. That he should himself, in 
after times, have died the same cruel death, is but an 
instance of that retributive justice, which sometimes, though 
rarely, falls upon man, as if by direct providence ; but, in 
view of his scandalous and barbarous career, one feels more 
disposed to regret that he should have received the honors, 
than that he should have undergone the tortures, of mar- 
tyrdom. 

The first measure taken by this base and perjured prelate 
was to write a letter to Henry, as if of his own free will and 
suggestion, beseeching him, for the better regulation of the suc- 
cession of the crown, to allow him to take cognizance of the case 
in his archiepiscopal court, and hear the cause of the divorce, 
and put an end, as a duty to God and the king, to the doubts 
concerning the validity of the marriage. The next step was 
to procure the passing of an act of parliament, prohibiting, un- 
der the penalties of prce?nunire, any appeal from the spiritual 
judges of England to the courts of the pontiff. A convocation 
was then assembled, consisting of two courts, one of theologi- 
ans, the other of canonists, who should give their decisions 
severally. To the theologians was submitted the question — 
' Can a Papal dispensation validate the marriage of one brother 
with another brother's widow, the first marriage having been 
consummated?" Of the canonists it was asked, "Were the 
proofs submitted to the legate, Cardinal Campeggio, sufficient 
canonical proof of such consummation'?" 

The theologians decided against the power of the pope's dis- 
pensation, to render such a marriage valid, by sixty-six dis- 
senting voices to nineteen ayes. 

The canonists declared on the sufficiency of proofs, by thirty- 
eight ayes to six negative votes. 



DIVORCE PRONOUNCED. 193 

Both courts thus deciding, directly, in Henry's favor, he 
granted to Cranmer his royal permission to proceed in his 
court, though he judged it necessary, in the first place, to re- 
mind him that he was only, as primate of England, the prin- 
cipal minister of the indefeasible spiritual jurisdiction res- 
ident in the crown, and that "the sovereign had no supe- 
rior on earth, and was not subject to the laws of any earthly 
creature." * 

The ambassador of Francis, in vain, protested that this pro- 
cedure was in violation of Henry's engagements, at Calais and 
Boulogne, with his master. Cranmer was ordered to proceed, 
and Katharine was cited to appear before him, at Dunstable, 
near Ampthill, where she resided. 

The service of the citation was proved on the tenth day of 
May, and on her non-appearance she was pronounced " contu- 
macious." On the twelfth, a second citation was proved, when 
she was pronounced " verily and manifestly contumacious," 
and the court proceeded to hear arguments and read deposi- 
tions, in proof of the consummation of her marriage with 
Prince Arthur. On the seventeenth, she was a third time 
cited to hear the judgment of the court ; but to none of these 
citations did she pay any attention, having been advised that 
to do so, would be to admit the archbishop's jurisdiction. 
Cranmer, therefore, on the Friday of ascension-week, pro- 
nounced the marriage between her and Henry null and invalid, 
having been contracted and consummated in defiance of the 
divine prohibition, and, therefore, without force and effect from 
the very beginning. 

Thus, at the expense of all honor, honesty, justice, and reli- 

* State Papers, i. 890. J 3 



194 THIRD DIVISION OF HIS LIFE. 

gion, by the present change of the whole ecclesiastical polity, 
and future alteration of the entire faith of a great nation, by a 
total subversion of all domestic laws, and disruption of foreign 
relations, was consum mated, to gratify a bad man's carnal 
lust, and a bad king's insane caprice for an heir male, this 
great and flagrant wrong, against a woman, justly admitted, 
in all times, to be of the most virtuous, the most woman- 
ly, the most queenly, the most loyal, and most royal, of 
her sex. 

But let none say, that Katharine was unavenged. On that 
day, forever, Henry's good angels all abandoned him. From 
that day, no one of the manly virtues, no one of the kingly 
graces, any more abode with Mm. Up to this time, he had 
been a man, though an obstinate, a selfish, and a willful man — 
a king, though a despotic, arrogant, self-sufficient and ungov- 
ernable king. Henceforth, he was a wild beast, a Nero, a 
monster, and almost a demon. Henceforth he was deserted 
by his better genius, given up, soul and body, " to the world, 
the flesh, and the devil." 

Little as there has been, heretofore, of pleasant to record, or 
to read, concerning him, henceforth there is nothing but brutal 
lust, barbarity, and butchery, perpetrated, as it would seem, 
for the very love of blood. 

Fortunately, the record will be short ; for, although there 
remain yet fourteen years, the worst years, of his detested life 
to be related, before his unregretted death consigned him to 
posterity, which holds his memory in equal awe and loathing, 
and liberated England from an incubus of blood and crime, the 
events of this third division of his reign are so narrowly sepa- 
rated from the circumstances of his five later marriages, and 



EVENTS PROPERLY DETAILED HEREAFTER. 195 

so little connected with the affairs, either foreign or domestic, 
of his people, that they are more properly detailed with the for- 
tunes of the five hapless ladies, who had, successively, the mis- 
ery to be his wives ; and in the memoirs of these, they will 
be chiefly, as more suitably, related. 



CHAPTER III. 

FROM THE DIVORCE OF QUEEN KATHARINE, 1533, TO HENRY'S 
DEATH, 154*7. 

The second phase of Henry's character, as developed in the 
period intervening between the general pacification and the di- 
vorce of Queen Katharine, may be regarded as one of ungov- 
ernable selfishness, inconsiderate obstinacy, reckless and furious 
impetuosity in accomplishing his own purposes, with a to- 
tal disregard to all rights of individuals or countries, to all 
real interests of himself or his people, arising, in the main, 
from mere animal licentiousness, and fierce rage, at op- 
position, like that of the wild bull which shuts his eyes, 
and dashes headlong against the first obstacle, only because 
it is an obstacle, to the indulgence of his own passion. 

Still, though he had shed blood, he had shown no special 
thirst for it, nor seemed to desire to spill it, except when he 
fancied that he should avert some political peril by the spill- 
ling. In two instances, he had shown some lingerings of self- 
respect, and some rare touches of humanity. He had been 
induced, not without difficulty, to sanction the measures 
which ruined Wolsey, though he believed him guilty of luke- 
warmness in the prosecution of his " secret matter ; " still he 
would not, I believe, ever have consented to the execution of 
that once loved friend and minister. Again, in the case of 



THE WONDER OF SUBMISSION. 197 

Reginald Pole, who was the scion of a race which he regarded 
as especially hostile and antagonistic to his own, and who had 
himself crossed him in his tenderest point, and offended him 
by opposition where he looked for support, he had shown a 
sort of fitful generosity, which he never displayed in any case 
again, and which seems to have utterly surprised all who wit- 
nessed it ; so thoroughly did all around him comprehend al- 
ready what would be, when once fairly aroused, the dormant 
instincts of the royal savage. After this time, his obstinacy 
partially disappeared, because he found little or no opposition 
which should call it forth ; for no one dared any longer to op- 
pose his intimated will, unless it were a few fanatics, or mar- 
tyrs, for religion's sake, whom he instantly consigned to the 
fagot or the scaffold, and his divorced wife, who alone, it is truly 
said, of men or women, ever braved his will with impunity. 
His lust increased into something akin to madness ; his ca- 
prices were so whimsically willful and extraordinary, that, but 
for their fearful and appalling consequences, they would be 
ludicrous; but his cruelty, his insatiable thirst for blood, nothing 
but blood, which no claims of gratitude, no memories of affec- 
tion, no ties of friendship, no bonds of kindred could divert, be- 
came, henceforth, the ruling passion, the unmistakable charac- 
ter, of his declining years. During this period, that is, indeed, 
true of him, which the ambassador of Francis wrote to his 
master, that, " truly, he was a marvellous man, and had mar- 
vellous people about him" — not the least of the marvel lying 
in this, that there was no law of the realm, which he did not 
override, the moment it thwarted either his lust or his ven- 
geance, by the aid of the very parliaments whose interest, as 
duty, it was to defend it; no liberty of the subject which he 
did not subvert, by the cooperation of the very persons or- 



198 STRANGE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES. 

dained to conserve it. In a word, that, throughout all that bold 
and free England, of late so turbulent and difficult to rule, 
even by comparatively moderate and gentle princes, among 
all that proud and restless Norman nobility, erst so prompt 
to offer armed resistance even to lawful rule, no resistance was 
so much as attempted against his ruthless and organized bar- 
barity. Even more wonderful is it, that even of those, who 
fell by his sanguinary mandates on the scaffold, none dared, so 
abject was their terror, so blind their submission to this " ty- 
rant bloody-sceptered," even to declare their innocence, and 
so " impugn the justice of the king," in that last moment, when 
the axe was bared and the block ready, when hope or fear could 
exist no longer, and, save the last parting pang, the bitterness 
of death was over. 

No promise, one would imagine, to speak nothing deroga- 
tory to the monster who slew, so unrighteously, both the in- 
nocent and guilty, would restrain some one of those unnum- 
bered victims from declaring aloud his own innocence, at that 
inevitable instant, when no farther punishment could follow the 
breach of it, and when the last and most natural wish of man, 
to live unsullied on the tongue of posterity, would, it should 
seem,, survive and overrule all respect for princes, all fear of 
king or kaisar. 

But so it was not. In this veritable reign of terror, brave 
men died by the axe, intrepidly, but silent; loyal men perished, 
without a word on their lips to indicate that they were not the 
traitors they were, without proof or trial, pronounced to be. 
Weak woman showed no dread of the sharp and sudden blow, 
yet passed away, leaving it in doubt, whether they were in- 
cestuous and adulteresses, or whether they were innocently, as 
well as illegally, brought down to the block ; when but a 



SILENCE IN DEATH. 199 

breath of theirs would have turned, to the ear of posterity, the 
balanced scales of opinion. More wondrous yet, the alleged 
accomplices of these women, dying before them, so that their 
last declarations, if they were innocent, might have availed 
those somewhat, died the death, neither confessing, nor deny- 
ing, crimes so incredible as a brother's incest with his own 
sister. 

Of a truth, if Henry were a marvellous man, or monster, 
as no one is likely to deny, his aiders and abetters, his victims, 
his judges, his nobles, his commons, his whole people, were, if 
anything, more marvellous than he. 

In the French reign of popular and democratic terror, the 
submission of a whole nation to the doom of a handful of mur- 
dering demagogues, whom they could have overwhelmed, in 
an instant, like an entering ocean in its wrath, was equal, and 
equally incomprehensible, with that of the English, during En- 
gland's reign of autocratic terror. But the French died, call- 
ing Heaven to witness and Hell to avenge; proclaiming, in tones 
that triumphed over death, their own conscious virtue, and de- 
nouncing, with eloquence that scathed, like lava, all on whom 
it flowed, the crimes of their accursed butchers. 

No one suspects the patriotism of one victim of the French 
revolution, or believes in the alleged treason to the republic 
" one and indivisible ;" no one can positively deny the crimi- 
nality, or establish the purity, of one of Henry's murdered 
queens or nobles, however clearly he may perceive the want 
of proof that they were guilty, and the savage illegality of 
their doom. 

A man may well die — many have, doubtless, died — ille- 
gally convicted of crime, yet being guilty of the crime of which 
he stands convict. With both of Henry's miserable consorts, 



200 MARRIAGE WITH ANNE LEGALIZED. 

who died bloody deaths, leaving behind them doubtful repu 
tations, it may, or it may not, have been thus. With more 
than one or two, of those condemned with them, and of the 
nobles attainted and slaughtered, by scores, on charge of trea- 
son, so also. They died and made no sign. 

If some of the princes and peers, whom he slaughtered, with- 
out evidence or trial, had not meditated, prayed for, compassed 
his death, their loyalty was more a marvel than a virtue ; but 
it is to be remembered that not one ever was proved, not one 
ever confessed, to have deserved his doom. And if every one 
of the political sufferers of this reign of blood had been justly 
slain, the hundreds, some say thousands, of religionists, to 
whom no choice was left between two horns of the dilemma, 
save to hang as traitors, if Papists, or to burn as heretics, if 
Protestants, and of just men who could not forswear their con- 
sciences, were yet enough to sink the tyrant's soul an ocean 
of fathoms deep in innocent and righteous gore. 

The first procedure after the annulling of Henry's marriage 
with Katharine, was a declaration officially promulgated by 
Cranmer, in his court at Lambeth, that Henry and Anne were 
and had been joined in lawful matrimony, and that he himself 
confirmed it, of his own authority, as judge and prelate. This 
occurred on the 28th of May, 1533, and had their marriage 
been at this time celebrated, it might have been in some sort 
held legal, and its issue legitimate ; but to assert that a mar- 
riage contracted and consummated, months before another ex- 
isting marriage had been dissolved, could by a retrospective 
action, validating it from its inception, be ex post facto, ren- 
dered lawful, and its issue, palpably begotten during the con- 
tinuance of a former undissolved contract, constituted legiti- 



CORONATION OF ANNE. 201 

mate,* requires more than all the cynical inconsistency of 
Henry, and the barefaced impudence of its clerical and lay 
advisers. 

On the first of June, Anne was crowned queen, with great 
pomp and unusual magnificence, amid jousts and tournays, gor- 
geous processions and triumphal arches, banquets and barriers, 
splintering of lances, bellowing of ordnance, flowing of conduits 
with wine and hypocras, smooth congratulations of the nobil- 
ity, loud lip-loyalty of the mob, but amid the secret sorrow 
and contained wrath of the English people, and the openly ex- 
pressed disgust and disdain of all Europe, Catholic and Prot- 
estant alike, without distinction of party, creed, or country. 

On this day Anne gained the cherished wish of her ambi- 
tious heart, the crown for which she had played so long, so 
skillfully, and, it must be said, so foully — the crown, which 
was so soon to bring down the fair head that wore it, in sorrow 
to a bloody grave. She was the queen of England ; and the 
last queen, in that cruel reign, although four yet succeeded her, 
who was indued solemnly with the diadem of the English 
empire. 

On this day, also, Henry satisfied one half of his fiercest as- 
pirations ; he had made his well-beloved Anne, from his mis- 
tress, his wife ; and the rest was in process of accomplishment. 
An heir male to his crown was within expectation, and he 
lacked only the solemn sanction of parliament to constitute 
him lay pope of the church of England. Still, despot as he 
was, a portion of his will failed of accomplishment. He 

*It is probable, and indeed appears from the declaration of Lee and Gardiner, to 
Queen Katharine, to that eifeet, that after the divorce had been pronounced by Cran- 
mer, a second marriage took place. But it is not on record. Nor does its validity 
or the legitimacy of Elizabeth stand on this ground of defence. 



202 PERSISTENCE OF THE QUEEN. 

could not force the designs of Providence, nor bend to his will 
the noble heart and unwavering confidence of one royal-minded 
woman. 

On the seventh of September, Anne deceived his hopes by 
bearing him a girl, stronger to be, in after days, than any man- 
monarch who has preceded or succeeded her — a girl, Eliza- 
beth, thereafter, the woman-king of England. But this the 
blinded despot saw not ; more than his light consort discerned 
the bloody winding-sheet, which had begun already to enfold 
her, still slowly creeping upward until it should envelope, to 
the neck, that headless trunk, which was now so soft and fair 
to look upon. The first warp of that ensanguined shroud was 
struck, on the day and hour when the baffled despot cursed 
and raved over the birth of a female offspring. 

With Katharine, no more than with heaven, not profanely 
or irreverently be it spoken, could he prevail by any violence 
or fury of intimidation. It was in vain that he fulminated his 
orders against her, to forbear the style and avoid the title of 
queen, contenting herself with the rank of dowager princess of 
Wales, and the income settled on her by her husband, Arthur. 
It was in vain that he dismissed such of her attendants, as 
should presume to style her queen, irrevocably from her ser- 
vice. To every injunction, every menace, she had but one 
answer. She had " come a clean maid to his bed." She 
would never slander herself, nor bastardize her daughter. 
She would never own herself to have been twenty-four years 
a harlot. She valued not the judgment of Dunstable, at a 
pin's fee. She had lived, and would die, queen of England. 
And she did so. 

Prelates he might browbeat; pontiffs he might unseat; par 
liaments he might bend into pliant tools ; peers he might un 



DOUBLE DEALINGS WITH CLEMENT AND FRANCIS. 203 

make, at pleasure ; princes, of great names and mighty na- 
tions, he might divide and conquer ; but that true woman's 
heart was all too strong for his brute violence ; and all the 
puissance of'his sceptre, all the terrors of his sword, could not 
unqueen that royal woman, or take from her the-empire she 
had won, the title she had affeared in the heart of the loyal 
English people. 

If Katharine were no longer queen of England, she was, 
more than ever, queen of the English ; and if he robbed her 
of all else, even her brute and most unworthy husband could 
never wholly rob her of his own esteem. For, when at last 
she exchanged a faded earthly crown, for an incorruptible 
crown in heaven, he — even he, who garbed himself in white, 
and married another bride, on the very day when Anne died — • 
who bade the physicians let beautiful Jane Seymour perish, if 
they might save her son, untimely 'born, "since wives were to 
be had for the getting, but sons only by the gift of God" — he, 
that bloated, bloody, remorseless, tearless monster, let fall one 
tear, almost his only one, from childhood to the grave, at 
tidings of her decease, who certainly loved him the only one 
of women. 

But, not to anticipate, for some time, appearances were kept 
up by Henry with both the pontiff and the king of France, as 
if he still desired to negotiate and to be reconciled ; but still 
he failed ever to keep his engagements, never sending plenary 
instructions, or full powers to treat, to his envoys. Francis, 
from policy, Clement, from gratitude and real liking to him, 
would have subserved his wishes ; but he paltered with both, 
and, in the end, gulled both egregiously. To the pope he held 
out greater concessions, than ever had been offered, if he would 
but annul his first, and ratify his second marriage. To Fran- 



204 Clement's will and fear. 

cis he promised alliance, offensive and defensive against all the 
world, subsidies, men, money, all and more than all he had 
ever asked, if he would but break off the marriage of his son, 
Orleans, with Catharine di Medici, the pope's niece, and deny- 
ing Clement's authority, follow his own example, discard the 
ultramontane head, erect a French church, and make to him- 
self a Gallican patriarch, abolishing the power of Rome in 
France forever. 

But Clement, though he had the will to do so, had not the 
daring to break off with Charles, and draw down upon Italy 
the wrath of the emperor, as he must have done by sanction- 
ing the repudiation of his aunt, whose rights Spain supported, 
unalterably, as a point both of faith and honor. Moreover, he 
could not command his cardinals to a decision foreign to their 
interests and their pleasure, to the laws of the church and the 
dictates of their consciences. A want of power, on his part, in- 
comprehensible to Henry, who was used to ride rough shod 
over all scruples of religion, all principles of honor, to make 
the faith of churchmen, the duty of parliaments, the very stat- 
utes and constitutions of his kindom, bend and fall prostrate, 
before the dictates of his own absolute yea ! 

Francis was not prepared to take a step so bold, so sudden, 
and, above all, so unlikely to be supported in France by pub- 
lic opinion, and by the sanction of the great barons and feuda- 
tories of the kingdom ; who still retained, and who indeed pre- 
served long afterward, until their powers were broken by the 
iron rod of Richelieu, a might which the peers of England had 
lost during the fatal wars of the Roses, a might, which no king 
could venture to dispute, much less to defy, and without which, 
on his side, he was powerless against a foreign enemy, and 
profitless among his own people. 



TWO ACTS OF PARLIAMENT. 205 

But Henry, secure at home, cared for the proceedings of 
neither ; anticipated the action of both. Before the ultimate 
decision of Rome, confirming the marriage of Katharine, and 
excommunicating both the king and Anne Boleyn, unless he 
repudiated her and took back to him his lawful wife, had 
reached the ears of Henry, the acts had passed the supreme 
courts of the land, from which lay no appeal, subtracting En- 
gland from the sway of Rome, and prohibiting, forever, the in- 
terference, spiritual or temporal, of foreign pontiff, as of 
foreign potentate, with the church, as with the state, of the 
earthfast isle. 

On the second of March, 1534, the blaze of bonfires, the 
roar of artillery, the shouts of viva VEspagna, viva Vimperio, 
expressed the joy of the imperialists at the sentence, rendered 
by nineteen out of two-and-twenty cardinals, confirming the 
rights and titles of the noble Spanish princess, and deposing 
the adulterous concubine, her despised and hated rival, and 
made the Vatican resound their empty exultation. On the 
80th of the same month, silently, solemnly, without noise, or 
congratulation, or shouting, two bills passed the parliament 
of England and received the royal sanction. The one erected 
the submission of the clergy, made the previous year, into a law 
of the land. The other set aside the marriage of the queen. 

By this, all allegiance, all rendition of dues, all acknowledg- 
ment of powers or prerogatives, all appointment of prelates, 
all enactment of bulls, canons, statutes, having force on En- 
glish soil, were prohibited to Rome forever. All the powers, 
rights, and authorities, all payments of dues or droits, all nom- 
inations to preferment, all p©ssessions temporal and spiritual, 
formerly belonging to the pontiff, were by this act attributed 
solely to the king, of the time being. All the existing canons 



206 THE TWO ACTS OF PARLIAMENT. 

ordinances, and constitutions of the church, at that time exist- 
ing, were to remain in force, unless modified or abrogated as 
repugnant to the statutes or customs of the realm, or the pre- 
rogatives of the crown, under that act to be determined. 

Thus was* the power of the pontiff annihilated at a blow, 
and the king of England, in esse, erected forever, de jure et de 
facto, into the supreme head of the Anglican church, spiritually 
no less than temporally, not as an empty title, but as an abi- 
ding fact, for all future generations. 

By the second act, Katharine's marriage was invalidated and 
made null and of no effect, from the beginning — Anne's lawful 
and valid. The issue of Katharine was made illegitimate, and 
excluded from the succession — that of Anne rightly bora, and true 
heirs to the crown. To declare the first marriage valid, and its is- 
sue legitimate, or the second marriage null, and its issue illegiti- 
mate, if the declaration were in writing, printing or in deed, 
was made high treason ; if by words only, misprision of trea- 
son, by the act. 

And obedience to every clause of both these acts, every sub- 
ject of the king's, now of full age, or who should thereafter 
come of age, could be compelled to swear, on penalty of mis- 
prision of treason, for refusal. 

The thunders of the Vatican, the artillery, the trumpets, and 
the shouting passed away, like empty sound and thin air, as they 
were. The acts of parliament endured, and are still, themselves, 
or their consequences, in England and in Italy, in Europe and 
in America, felt, and puissant with a strong vitality, living at this 
day throughout the world, more or less, everywhere. 

But not as the tyrant, who pro><jured their -enactment, to grat- 
ify his own vile lusts, intended it. He would have had an old 
church with a new head — he made a new church, with no head 



PERFECT SUCCESS OF HENRY'S SCHEMES. 207 

at all, save the Almighty and Eternal Head, the Everliving 
Truth in Heaven. He would have extinguished liberty of con- 
science, liberty of speech, of thought, of action, of self-govern- 
ment, utterly and forever. Under the will of Providence, in 
whose hand his forceful but ephemeral tyranny *was but a sha- 
ping instrument, he rendered freedom what it is to-day, omnipo- 
tent and ubiquitous, felt where it is least heard by the general 
ear, perceived where it is least seen by the public eye, and 
thundered into the conscience of the deafest and darkest despo- 
tisms, by the overwhelming diapason of public opinion. 

Henry would have crushed out the last spark of an expiring 
mortal body, he created a living and a saving spirit. 

Everything was now accomplished which this king had de- 
sired — far more, indeed, than he had at the first hoped or even 
aspired to gain, since he originally sought only, by a divorce, 
granted at the hands of the pope, to rid himself of one wife, 
and take to himself a younger and a fairer bride ; nor is it in 
the slightest degree probable, that he would, then or thereafter, 
had he succeeded in his original object, have conceived an idea 
of limiting the pontifical authority in his dominions, much less 
of converting to himself the revenues of the church, or the right 
of the chief ruler. Erom opposition, however, he drew in- 
creased determination to resist ; and from the prosecution of 
resistance came the necessity of agents, able, ambitious and un- 
scrupulous. Able enough, doubtless, and more than ambitious 
enough, was Wolsey ; but, though his conscience was by no 
means of the tenderest, it was not so completely seared against 
all sense of justice, patriotism and religion, as to suit Henry's 
purpose. Therefore, he fell ; partly, that he had not fully sat- 
isfied the expectations of his master ; more, that he had awa- 



208 ABSOLUTISM IN ENGLAND. 

kened the enmity of the mistress, who never, it seems, spared 
any, whom she had the desire and the power to destroy. 

Cromwell bid higher, in promises, for the royal favor, than 
even his predecessor had ever done — to the power of freely indul- 
ging his passions, at the expense of morality and justice, he 
added that of gratifying his avarice and ambition, at the expense 
of religion ; and, I believe, though this is less certain, in opposi- 
tion to the express desire of a majority of his people. 
• The ease with which one point was carried, readily suggested 
others ; and so rapidly and successfully were his advances 
made, "the law providing safeguards and creating offences hith- 
erto unknown, for the preservation of the new royal dignities, 
and the maintenance of the new succession,"* that at the be- 
ginning of the year 1534, he had realized infinitely more, than 
the wildest wishes of the most impracticable despot could 
have conceived, at the commencement of his reign, but twenty- 
three short years before ; and had, in fact, attached to the crown 
of England, the amplest social privileges of the sultan, and the 
largest spiritual prerogatives of the pope. He had, moreover, 
diverted to himself, from the lawful owners, a boundless source 
of wealth in the revenues, possessions, and lands of the church, 
which, by the way, the holders had never pretended to hold 
save in trust for the indigent and pauper population of the 
realm, of whom, practically, in the absence of poor laws or 
any provision for the proletarian classes by statute, the church 
was the patron and provider, fulfilling its duty, in the main, as 
well as it has been done before or since that time. 

Of this implied and unwritten trust, it is needless to say, to 
those who have thus far followed this history, that he never 
even pretended to take heed ; as, in truth, he never did of any- 
thing human or divine, unless so far as it suited his present whim. 

* Lingard, vi., 207. 



HIS INNATE CRUELTY. 209 

And it is this which renders it difficult to discern how far it 
was a sincere regard for the " ancient learning " and the Papish 
creed, and how far the pressure of waut, no longer relieved by 
the dole and charities of the suppressed monasteries, that caused 
the transient religious insurrections which followed, especially 
that known as " the rising of the north." 

Probably the latter cause had its full share, at the least ; 
since the rising consisted mainly of the lower classes, led by 
the rural priesthood ; and though some great names are con- 
nected with it, was generally little favored by the nobility. 
One thing is evident ; that the king's points were all gained, — 
that his innovations had been carried into effect unresisted, and 
that none were disposed openly to deny, though many might 
secretly disapprove, his spiritual assumption, as supreme head 
of the church. 

But now the bloody feature of his character was to be de- 
veloped ; and it was so, shortly, in a manner the most re- 
volting, and, under circumstances, which showed it to be the 
effect of innate cruelty, not of political expediency, much less 
of any state necessity. 

The two most respectable, virtuous and learned men of En- 
gland, Fisher, bishop cf Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, the 
chancellor, had opposed, so far, that is to say, as refusing to 
countenance, his views in regard to his divorce, and had thereby 
earned the unforgiving hatred of the beautiful Anne, and drawn 
on themselves the vindictive spite and jealousy of the tyrant. 

Their innocent and holy blood was to be the first libation and 
prelude to that multitude of human hecatombs, which made 
the palace of the despot rather to resemble a shambles, or the 
den of some insatiable wild beast, than the residence of a chris- 
tian king. An indictment was laid against these men for mis- 

14 



210 THE HOLY MAID OF KENT. 

prision of treason, in that they had in some degree listened to 
the ravings of one Elizabeth Barton, known as the "Holy Maid 
of Kent," an insane, epileptic nun, who supposed herself a 
prophetess, and, having obtained a set of foolish, fanatical ad- 
herents, had latterly given a political tone to her predictions. 
Much excited, as it appears most of the women of England 
were, by the case of Katharine, she had strongly espoused the 
cause of the late queen, and had proclaimed, after one of her 
visions, that the king should die within a month after his di- 
vorcing Katharine ; that his daughter, Mary, should suceeed 
him, and — which portion of her prophecy was, by a strange ac- 
cident, fulfilled — that "dogs should lick his blood." The king 
had been long acquainted with these pretended prophecies ; he 
had out lived the term appointed for his death ; and last, not 
least, the wretched Barton and her chief adherents were brought 
to confess the whole matter to be an imposture, publicly, at 
St. Paul's cross. This done, one would have judged, all possible 
danger over, that the insignificance and obvious folly of these 
miserable wretches might have saved their lives, and that royal 
vengeance might have slept. But no ! Their blood was needed 
to justify the shedding nobler blood thereafter. They were at- 
tainted for treason, without trial — a thing unheard of and 
abominable in English law — before the parliament ; and though 
the lords humbly craved permission of the king to hear wh%t 
defence the accused might make, no reply being vouchsafed to 
this most moderate request, were condemned unheard, and 
suffered at Tyburn, all the horrors which, to the disgrace of 
English jurisprudence, remained so long attached to the crime 
of treason. For having had one or two interviews with this 
mad woman, for hiving once given her money, and, in the case 
©f More, for haik.T advised her to confine her predictions to 



FISHER AND MORE. 21 1 

piety, avoiding to intermeddle with politics, the two illustrious 
men first named, were connected with the low-born and delu- 
ded crew who had suffered a martyrdom so cruel, for their 
folly. The virtue, the learning, the innocence of Fisher, could 
not preserve him from attainder. He was condemned ; and 
purchased, for three hundred pounds, his temporary pardon 
from the tyrant, less avaricious only, than he was bloody and 
relentless. 

The entreaties of all his counsellors, literally on their knees 
before him, procured the erasure of More's name from the list 
of proscription, as there was not a shadow of evidence against 
him, and they felt the impossibility of so destroying him. 

But Boleyn thirsted for their blood ; the king could refuse 
Boleyn nothing ; therefore their blood must flow. They were, 
within a fortnight of Barton's execution, called upon to swear 
to the acts of successsion and supremacy. Both consented to 
swear to the civil portions of both acts, admitting their valid- 
ity and the competence of the civil power to enact them. 
Both declined to swear to every particular in the acts, as some 
of these contained dogmata of a purely religious nature, which 
they could not conscientiously admit. 

Cranmer was in favor of the acceptance of the oaths, so lim- 
ited. Cromwell stood out for the whole; and Henry, eager 
for their blood, if possible, and if not, anxious to compel them 
to unconditional surrender, suppported Cromwell. They were 
again cited to swear, and refusing, committed to the tower. In 
the meantime, while farther proceedings were in preparation 
against these, religious persecution began to take the place of 
political oppression. Henry was determined that his spiritual 
supremacy should not remain as an empty title, but should go 
into fact, as a present and active power ; and called on his most 



212 THE PERSECUTIONS. 

learned and most loyal prelates to support him with their tal- 
ents and their counsels. Sampson and Stokesly, two of the 
most celebrated, assisted, willingly, and from conviction, in the 
work of blood. Tonstal and Gardiner, slavishly and cowardly, 
and in defiance of what they believed to be the right. 

The people and the clergy of the realm, for the most part, 
outwardly, at least, and openly, conformed ; the three religious 
orders, Carthusians, Brigittins and Franciscans defied both ar- 
gument and intimidation. Of these, no less than fifty misera- 
bly perished in prison ; the rest, at the intercession of Wrioth- 
esly, the chancellor, who was with them at heart, were banished 
to France and Scotland. > 

Shortly after this, the priors of the charter houses of Lon-. 
don, Axiholm and Belleval, were brought to trial for high trea- 
son; and, though the jury could not be brought to find against 
them, until the minister himself had argued with them and in- 
timidated them by threats of being themselves similarly ar- 
raigned, w r ere convicted, and, in company with four other 
monks and a secular clergyman, hanged, cut down while yet 
living, embowelled, dismembered, and beheaded. 

During this interval, thus employed by Henry, his parlia- 
ment had found both Fisher and More guilty of misprision of 
treason. The sentence was forfeiture and perpetual imprison- 
ment. These men— these innocent, good men, both of them, 
but a little while before, Henry's personal friends, associates 
and intimates, — were now reduced, with their families, to utter 
destitution, and almost to starvation. Fisher, at seventy 
years, lay in his dungeon, without clothes to cover his naked- 
ness. More would have perished of starvation, but for the 
support afforded him, by his married daughter, Margaret 
Roper. 



DEATH OF FISHER AND MORE. 218 

But even this would not suffice. Henry had broken bread, 
and tasted the sacred salt ; had jested with More, and played 
at his hearth with the innocent children, whom, he was now re- 
solved, per fas aut nefas, to render fatherless, as well as home- 
less. Fisher was the last surviving counsellor of Henry VII., 
and the guardian to whose care, on her death-bed, the venera- 
ble countess of Richmond had entrusted his inexperience. In 
his earlier and better years, the king had been wont to boast 
that no monarch in Europe had a counsellor so wise, a prelate 
so pious as the Bishop of Rochester. He affected to revere 
him as a father. 

But both these had committed the unpardonable sin. They 
■ had dared to think for themselves; they had withheld consent 
from the king's " secret matter ; " they had offended the king's 
harlot. Therefore, they must die. 

But how or wherefore, when in these just men even their 
false judges could find no deadly sin 1 ? They were harassed, in 
their secret prison-houses, by examinations, interrogatories, 
multiplications of questionings. Even that availed nothing. 
They were tempted into, what were distinctly stated to them 
to be, private conversations ; and, these being infamously re- 
vealed, if not more infamously invented, by the king's basest 
spies and panderers, the vilest of whom was Rich, the solicitor 
general, were sentenced to the block for high treason. 

This, be it observed, not for actions done, or opinions 
openly, much less seditiously, expressed, but for conscientious 
convictions, only extorted from them at all, in reply to ques- 
tions at once insidiously and illegally propounded. 

Fisher died first, dauntless as innocent ; and, to increase, if 
anything could increase, the atrocity of the deed, the decapita- 
ted trunk was suffered to lie naked, where it fell, until night, 



214 DEATH OF FISHER AND MORE. 

when it was removed by the guards, and buried in All-hallow's 
church-yard, in Barking. 

More was led, on foot, from the tower to Westminster, to 
receive his sentence ; openly avowed his conviction that the 
act of supremacy was unlawful ; heard his doom, unmoved ; 
and even preserved his unalterable firmness, when, on his way 
back to the tower, his beloved daughter, Margaret, twice 
broke through the halberds of .the pitying guards, and, in her 
speechless anguish, bathed him with unavailing tears. 

He died, like Fishei-, dauntless. The heads of both were 
displayed on London bridge; though it is said thatMore's was 
rescued thence by the heroism of Margaret, and, with the 
body, duly consigned to consecrated earth. In England, men 
were plunged into such an apathy of dismay, despair and ser- 
vitude, that the death of these great, good men, though it 
smote every heart, as with an individual calamity, awoke no 
responsive cry of abhorrence or defiance. But their names live 
in every English heart, synonymous with all that is best of lib- 
erty and religion. 

In every foreign land, the tidings were received by Lutheran 
and Catholic alike, with one unanimous burst of open execra- 
tion. The pope, Paul III., who had succeeded Clement, at the 
urgent exhortation of the conclave, issued a bull of excommu- 
nication, interdict, and dethronement, against the murderous 
tyrant ; but, perceiving that the only monarchs capable of en- 
forcing it, Charles and Francis, were both eager only to court 
the friendship, not incur the enmity, of this puissant arbiter of 
Europe, he revoked it before publication, and reluctantly con- 
signed it to oblivion in those " lofts of piled thunder," which 
were stored with ineffectual and unfulminated bolts of Romish 
arrogance and anger. 



INTERDICT OF PAUL III. 215 

During the remainder of this, and the whole of the ensuing 
year, the king strenuously pressed, and thoroughly carried out, 
what has been called the reformation, but what should be called 
the suppression of Papacy in England. By a singular stratagem, 
suggested by Leigh and Ap Jlice, two creatures of Cromwell, 
all the prelates m the realm were entrapped into the admission, 
" that they derived no authority from Christ, but were merely 
occasional delegates of the crown." * The method of effect- 
ing this, was the issue by Cromwell, as vicar-general of the 
king — in which capacity, it is worthy of note, that he took prece- 
dence of the Archbishop of Cantebury, primate of England — 
of an act suspending, on the pretext of a general visitation, all 
the powers of all the dignitaries of the English church. 

Thereupon, it was held, if they claimed powers as of divine 
right, they would adduce proofs. Otherwise, the question 
would go in favor of the king, by default. 

Recourse was had to the scheme, with absolute success. 
The prelates submitted patiently, some ignorant of the trick, 
some fearful to resist, some tricksters themselves and in the 
plot ; and, after a month's suspension, on humble petition to 
the king, all were severally restored, each by a separate com- 
mission, to the exercise of their functions during the royal pleas- 
ure, and that, merely as royal deputies. 

This feat of legerdemain — for it deserves no other name — 
accomplished, a bill was forced through both houses, not, how- 
ever, without violent opposition — so violent, indeed, that be- 
fore it passed, the king had to send for the members of the 
lower house, whom he pleasantly informed, that he " would 
have the bill pass or take off some of their heads" — sup- 
pressing all the smaller monasteries, giving the whole property, 

* Lingard, vs., 231. 



216 SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 

real or personal, appertaining to them, to the king and his 
heirs forever, and vesting the possession of their lands and ten- 
ements in those to whomsoever they should be granted by let- 
ters patent. 

So pleasant and simple, in those days, was the manner 
adopted by the kings of England, in dealing with their trusty 
commons ; and so obedient were the members of that puissant 
body, now the dominant power of the state, to the monarchs, 
their veritable lords and masters. Thus was consummated the 
humiliation and spoliation of the church, to the indefinite aug- 
mentation of the power, wealth and prerogative of the crown ; 
to the infinite enriching of the creatures of Cromwell and the king, 
and of the grantees of the suppressed establishments ; to the 
cruel injury of the ejected monks and nuns, the latter of whom 
were thrown on the cold charity of the world, with no provis- 
ion, other than the mockery of a single gown, granted to each 
by the king ; and to the enduring loss of the indigent poor, 
who were supported, in a great measure, by the alms of these 
much abused institutions. 

Thus, strange to say, was accomplished a prediction uttered 
many years before, though with no pretence of divine inspira- 
tion, by an archbishop of Paris ; that whensoever the Cardinal 
of York should lose the favor of Henry,* the spoliation of the 
church would shortly follow. 

This same year, while the process of spoliation was in oper- 
ation, died, in the castle of Kimbolton, where she had lived the 
last years of her life, almost in durance, that most royal woman, 
Katharine of Arragon. Nothing of persecution, of intimidation, 
of menace, had ever induced her to abandon her style of queen 
of England, or tempted her to accept the asylum, which Charles 

* Lingard, vi. 230. 



DEATH 0E QUEEN KATHARINE. 217 

offered, and Henry dared not have disallowed, in Spain or 
the Netherlands — not that she valued the empty title, but that 
she would not invalidate her daughter Mary's claim to the suc- 
cession, which she ever believed would come to be hers, in 
time. 

She died on the 7th of January, 1536 ; and Henry, as I have 
said, wept, when he heard of her decease, and ordered his court 
into mourning for her loss. But his sympathy did not induce 
him to grant her last request, for an interview with her child, from 
whom he had savagely separated her; nor did it deter him from 
endeavoring to seize himself of the small effects she had left 
behind her ; as he had previously done by her dowry, her jew- 
els, and even her wardrobe, all of which, with the exception 
of what she actually wore, this foul disgrace, not of royalty, 
but of manhood, had detained, when he drove her out of her 
apartments at Windsor, to make way for her light rival. 

That rival now, when all the court wore mourning, and all 
England, but the court, mourned indeed, trapped herself in 
yellow robes, the color which best becomes a brunette, and 
professed herself " now indeed a queen." But her departed 
rival better knew Henry's heart, than she ; if it be true, as it 
is saidf by Dr. Harpsfield, that hearing one of her ladies 
cursing Anne, the sad queen cried, " Curse her not — curse her 
not, but rather pray for her, for even now is the time fast 
coming, when you shall have reason to pity her and lament 
her case." 

It was, indeed, fast coming ; for while she was yet exulting 
over her rival's death, she found her maid of honor, Jane 
Seymour, who had supplanted her, as she had supplanted Kath- 
arine, sitting on Henry's knee. In an agony of jealous rage } 
• t Apud Miss Strickland, vol. iv. 109, 



218 DECAPITATION OF ANNE. 

she took to her bed, for she was far gone with child, in prema- 
ture labor pains, and was delivered of a dead son-who, had 
he lived, would probably have prolonged, if not secured, her 
ascendency-only twenty days after the decease of Katharine. 

That mis-delivery decided her fate. On the twenty-fifth 
day of the ensuing April, a court of commission was held to 
inquire into her conduct ; it consisted of the chancellor, of the 
Duke of Norfolk, her uncle, the Duke of Suffolk, and her own 
father ; and these reported, that there was proof sufficient to 
convict her of unchastity, with Brereton, Norris, and Weston, 
of the privy chamber, with Smeaton, the king's musician, and 
even with her own brother, the Lord Rochefort. Of the cir- 
cumstances of the case, and of the evidence, little is known, and 
that little will be examined more fully, when I come to her 
own sad story. Suffice it now, that Lady Rochefort, her own 
brother's wife, who, singularly enough, had been committed to 
the tower for adherence to her predecessor, and was afterward 
beheaded for complicity in the adultery of her third successor, 
was the principal witness against her. Smeaton, whose rank 
in life subjected him, and who was probably subjected, to 
question on the rack, is said to have confessed his guilt. 
But he, with the others, including herself, who all died on the 
scaffold, died, not denying nor confessing anything. 

She Avas decapitated, meeting the death stroke fearlessly, af- 
ter passing her last days, strangely, between tears and laughter, 
with a two-handed sword by the hand of a French execu- 
tioner, imported from Calais, for the purpose — the last, if not 
the only, woman who died such a death in England. 

The strongest proof, or show of proof, against her, lies in 
the bitter hatred which Henry evidently bore to her, personal 
in its nature, and insatiate by her death, until he had destroyed 



MARRIAGE WITH JANE SEYMOUR. 219 

her memory also. Either to slay, or to divorce her, would 
have sufficed, to enable him to marry the Seymour had that 
been his only object ; but he must needs do both, and, more- 
over, bastardize her innocent child, Elizabeth, whom, notwith- 
standing, he admitted to be his own daughter, and brand her 
memory with the stain, not of adultery only, but of the almost 
inconceivable crime of incest. 

He sat on horseback, under an oak, in Greenwich park, un- 
til the tower-gun announced that the lovely head had rolled in 
the dust ; and then uncoupled the hounds, and away on the 
wings of the morning ! to wed Jane Seymour, on the succeed- 
ing day, at Wolf's Hall, in Wiltshire, and to feast, with her, 
on a bridal banquet literally furnished forth, while her prede- 
cessor's life hung on the falchion's edge. 

Cranmer must next be called upon — Cranmer, who had pro- 
nounced the marriage with Katharine null and void, and de- 
clared that of Anne lawful and of good effect from the begin- 
ning, by virtue of his own authority — only he was the man 
who should reverse his own declaration, and falsify his own 
record. He did so ; and that second marriage was, likewise, 
pronounced null and of no effect from the beginning, though 
on what grounds is nowhere stated. The issue of Anne was 
also, of course, declared incapable to succeed, and an act of 
parliament was procured securing the succession, after the re- 
peal of its last preceding act of entail, to the heirs of the body 
of Jane Seymour. To this act was appended a clause, in utter 
defiance of the laws and constitution of the kingdom, giving to 
Henry the power " to limit the crown in possession and re- 
mainder by letters patent under the great seal, or by his last 
will, signed with his own hand," * to any person or persona 
*Lingarcl,vi. 252, 



220 INSURRECTION IN THE NORTH. 

of his own choosing. The object of this enactment was to ena- 
ble him, and so it was understood, in default of heirs male le- 
gitimate, to bequeath the crown to his favorite, the Duke of 
Richmond, his natural son, by Elizabeth Taillebois. He, how- 
ever, died this very summer ; and the willful and arrogant ty- 
rant was left, without heir male or female, legitimate or ille- 
gitimate, to succeed him. 

Shortly after the present marriage, he partially relented 
toward Mary, whom, on account of what he called her disobe- 
dience in upholding the marriage of her own mother, he had 
kept hitherto in penury and disgrace ; and, on her confessing 
him to be the supreme head of the church, and admitting the 
marriage of her mother incestuous and unlawful, restored her 
partially to his favor, and granted to her an establishment, in 
some degree befitted to her birth, though still denying her le- 
gitimacy. In this autumn, broke out a dreadful insurrection, 
originating with the starving monks and famished populace of 
the north, but secretly patronized and fomented by the north- 
ern nobility of the old religion. To such a height did this re- 
bellion rise, and so formidable had it become, involving the 
whole north of England, from the frontiers of Scotland to Don- 
caster, that Shrewsbury and Norfolk, the king's lieutenants, 
found it expedient to treat rather than to fight ; and, on the 
promise of a free pardon to all, and the speedy assembling of 
the parliament at York, for the redress of all grievances, the 
insurgents laid down their arms. Henry, of course, so soon 
as the peril had passed over, neglected his stipulated word, 
and the rebels again rose in force ; but Norfolk was now at 
the head of a sufficient army, and defeated them in detail. 
Their chief leaders, Lord d'Arcy, and Robert Ashe, with some 
others, were executed in London ; the subordinates were 



REGINALD POLE. 221 

hanged by scores and hundreds, at York and Carlisle, and 
when " rebellion's head was cold," and the last spark of resist- 
ance quenched in blood, that, which was whimsically styled the 
king's mercy, spared the wretched remainder, and granted a 
general pardon. 

The suppression of an insurrection ever strengthens the 
hands of any government, and supplies a tyrannical govern- 
ment with means of fresh tyranny. Nor did this general 
truth now fail of application. After the insurrection of the 
north, all the great northern abbeys, — Furness, Whalley, Bot- 
ton, Lanercost, Jovraulx, Fountains, and the rest, — shared the 
fate of the smaller monasteries ; all were, in turn, suppressed, 
wrested from the lawful possessors, and transferred to the 
grantees of the crown. 

This done, Henry converted the last relics of his fury 
against Reginald Pole, to whom, as has been before shown, he 
had formerly displayed a fitful and short-lived generosity. 
This young nobleman, who had borne himself, in his volun- 
tary exile, with singular moderation, had been actually com- 
pelled, by Henry's agency, to give his opinion in writing, on 
the assumption of supremacy and the divorce of Katharine. 
As long as possible he avoided the unwelcome task ; but, at 
last, after Anne's execution, he delivered his opinion, utterly 
condemnatory of the whole course of his royal kinsman's con- 
duct, in a long, rhetorical, elocutionary treatise, which he sent 
by private hand to the king. Henry, for once, concealed his 
fury, and dissembled, but dissembled only, in the hope of get- 
ting his now hated enemy — for such he henceforth styled him — 
into his power. Reginald was, however, too wise and wary 
to accept Henry's invitation to visit him, when they could dis- 
cuss the matter together at leisure ; for he well knew that to 



222 henry's purposes frustrated. 

tread on English soil was to follow his friends, Fisher and 
More, unavailingly, to the block. Shortly after this, he was 
created cardinal, and appointed legate beyond the Alps, for the 
purpose of effecting a reconciliation between Francis and the 
emperor, and uniting their arms against the Turk. Of this 
mission and its purpose, he honestly and truthfully informed 
Henry ; and, farther, did him good service in procuring the 
continued suppression of the bull of interdict, which, but for 
his intercession, would have been promulgated, during the 
height of the northern insurrection, which Paul and his advi- 
sers regarded as a favorable opportunity. Cromwell was, 
however, his personal enemy ; and, if Henry's rage had not 
been, in itself, too blind and brutal to discriminate, would have 
secured his ear against him. That was not needed ; so soon 
as he arrived at Cambray, Henry demanded him of the king 
of France ; set a price of fifty thousand crowns on his head, 
and offered Charles an auxiliary force against Francis in ex- 
change for his person. 

Frustrated in his purpose, by the cardinal's recall to Rome, 
he declared him a public enemy, and resolved on the total de- 
struction of all his English kindred, who, unhappily for them, 
were within his reach ; from which fell purpose he was not 
diverted, although he was compelled to defer it, by the events 
of the autumn, which one knows not, in reference to Henry, 
whether to style calamity or good fortune, and which made 
him, once more a father — this time of an heir male — and again 
a widower. 

On Friday, October 12th, 1537, Jane Seymour, of whom 
Lingard most justly observes, that, with no evidence of any 
positive merit, or virtue, of her own, she has fared better with 



BIRTH OF PRINCE EDWARD. 223 

historians, than any other of Henry's queens, was delivered 
of a prince, afterward Prince of Wales, and King Edward VI. 

The immunity from censure which this princess enjoyed, 
possessing no kind of real merit, that one can cliscoyer, beyond 
grace, beauty, and a certain iuoffensiveness, which was, after 
all is said, merely passive, he ascribes, justly, to the fact, that, 
whereas to each one of the other five queens, either the Ro- 
mish or the Protestant writers have been hostile on polemical 
grounds, both have upheld the character of Jane. The former, 
because she was uniformly kind and gracious to Mary, the 
child of Katharine, and afterward the Papistical queen — the 
latter, because she was the mother of the ultra Lutheran king, 
Edward VI. 

He, conclusively, shows that her alleged uniform kindness 
to Mary, might well arise from mere opposition to Anne Bo- 
leyn, who had been peculiarly and uniformly unkind to her ; 
while Miss Strickland, no less conclusively, shows that she was 
not "the fairest" — for the two unfortunates, Boleyn and How- 
ard, were both fairer, as their extant portraits prove — nor 
" the discreetest" — for how can she be called discreet, who is 
found by a wife sitting on her husband's knee 1 — nor in any 
respect, at all, " the most meritorious of all Henry VIIL's 
wives" — as some pompous historiographer has absurdly 
styled her. 

On the 12th of October, she was delivered, after a labor 
so dangerous, that the physicians, apprehensive that to save 
both lives would be impossible, left it to the option of the 
"uxorious" king, as he has been called, who showed his uxori- 
ousness, on this occasion, by ordering the wife and mother to 
be sacrificed, if need should be, with the pleasant and manly, 
not to say gentlemanly, observation, that he could have as 



224 DEATH OF QUEEN JANE. 

many wives as he pleased, but as many sons, only, as it hap* 
pened. That she lived at all, was no thanks to her brutal lord ; 
that she died, a few days afterward, was owing, wholly, to his 
reckless and boisterous exultation, at the birth of a boy ; and 
to the din and roar of the christening carousals, with which he 
deafened her sick chamber, and literally drummed her into 
the grave. 

That he affected to hold her first and dearest of his wives, 
was, first, that she died before he grew aweary of her ; sec- 
ond, that she was the sultana-mother of his harem of queens, 
who alone bore him a surviving son.*§S-* 

How much he truly loved her, one may judge, knowing 
that, before she had been cold in her grave, a single month, 
he was moving heaven and earth to win the hand of the beau- 
tiful Marie de Longueville, precontracted to his own nephew, 
James of Scotland. A rare commentary, by the way, on his 
sanctimonious horror of the iniquity of marriages with pre- 
contracted women ! But why look for consistency in one 
whose only constancy was wickedness, whose only consistency, 
crime % 

It appears, that when, immediately on Jane Seymour's death, 
this truly " marvellous man" expressed his desire for a French 
wife, a step which, of course, Francis was bound, by his own 
interest, to promote, that prince made him some general an- 
swer, to the effect that there was no unmarried dame, or dam- 
sel, in his kingdom, whose hand he might not obtain, at his 
pleasure ; and when Henry, after vainly persecuting Marie de 
Longueville, for five months, to force her to accept him, was 
compelled to resign all hopes of possessing her, on her sailing 
to Scotland for the purpose of marrying his nephew, he actu 
ally took his brother monarch at his word ; and required him 



HENRY SEEKINO ANOTHER WIFE. 225 

not as a jest, but in all sober seriousness, to produce the hand- 
somest ladies in France, at Calais, for his inspection. The 
Duchess of Vendome he might have had ; but, offended by 
the refusal of the beautiful Longueville, he refused the other 
lady, in order to strike a balance, as one would say in mercan- 
tile phrase, since James had rejected her, in like manner as 
James's lady-love had denied himself her favor. Marie's two 
sisters, he would neither of them ; because Francis declined 
the proposal to show them for selection ; observing, as such a 
gay gallant as he well might do, that it was not the mode of 
France, to do with fair ladies, as horse-coursers do with their 
palfreys — trot them out, that he, who wants one, may choose 
the easiest-goer. 

The truth is — strange as it may appear, that anything should 
be exaggerated concerning Henry, unless it were the report of 
his early virtues — that an exaggerated rumor prevailed, on 
the continent, in regard to the death of his first three wives, 
which rendered the princesses of France averse to trying their 
fortunes, as his fourth. Katharine, it was said, had died of 
poison — a saying, for wb'ch there was no possible foundation, 
as she had been for many years a valetudinarian, and died after 
a lingering illness. The sharp and sudden cure of Anne's 
earthly sorrows was known to all ; as was the cause of Jane 
Seymour's untimely departure ; which might undoubtedly 
have been prevented, by the common care and quietude ac- 
corded, in such cases, to all women of humbler station, though 
not, always, to those in more exalted places. It is not won- 
derful, however, that such a rumor should prevail ; ■ though 
many persons, doubtless, will esteem it even more than 
wonderful, that, after his antecedents, he should have found any 
lady, without the pale of his own dominions — where to have 
J* 15 



226 AMUSEMENTS OF WIDOWHOOD. 

refused his hand, would, in all probability, have cost her head — ■ 
who would accept his crown, burthened with the weight of his 
now bloated, unwieldy and diseased person, of his brutal love, 
and the risk of his barbarous displeasure. 

It was, indeed, above two years before he could find any 
one who would accept it ; and when he did find one, it was po- 
litical motives, alone, which brought about the sacrifice of the 
hand of the unhappy lady, whom he wedded, only to repudi- 
ate, almost before the honeymoon was ended. 

The interval between the loss of his third, and the wedding 
of his fourth bride, he spent for once consistently ; in coquet- 
ting with the pope, whom his execution of Anne, his roasting 
of heretics, his dabbling in theology, with an evident leaning 
to the doctrines of Eome, induced to hope that he might be 
reclaimed into the bosom of the church ; and at the same time, 
with the reformed states and princes of Germany, who fancied 
that he might be brought to join their communion, in conse- 
quence of their mutual antagonism to the pontiff and see of 
St. Peters. He promulgated articles of faith, denying the pos- 
sibility of salvation, except by adherence to the creed of the 
Romish church, the head of which alone he repudiated ; main- 
taining the seven sacraments, the Apostles', the Athanasian, and 
the Nicene creeds ; enforcing the compulsory celibacy of the 
clergy, much to the grief of Cranmer, who was obliged, in or- 
der to save his body from the stake, to repudiate his wife, and 
send his children into Germany ; forbidding the cup of the 
eucharist to the laity; and sustaining private masses and auric- 
ular confession. He butchered Protestant heretics and adhe- 
rents to the pope, with perfect impartiality ; he presided at 
the examination of accused heretics, argued with them, con- 
demned them, assisted at their autos da fe, to the admiration 



THOMAS A BECKET IN COURT. 227 

of Cromwell,* and the disgust and abhorrence of the whole 
christian world beside. He reformed abuses in religion, abol- 
ished useless holidays, destroyed miraculous shrines and holy 
wells, prohibited pilgrimages and processions, pulled down 
oracular chapels, burnt juggling relics, and finally, to put the 
climax on high-flown absurdity, and stamp himself almost a 
fool and madman, cited the Archbishop Thomas a Becket, who 
had been dead since the reign of Henry II., nearly three cen- 
turies before, to appear in court at Westminster, and show 
cause why he should not be found guilty of rebellion, against 
his sovereign lord, the king. At the end of thirty days, the 
period allowed by canon law, the saint not appearing, in per- 
son or by attorney, was found guilty of " contumacy, rebellion, 
and treason ; " his bones were ordered to be burned, " to ad- 
monish the living of their duty by the punishment of the 
dead;" and all his personal property was forfeited to the 
crown. It is worthy of remark, that his shrine was immensely 
rich in gold and jewelry, two huge coffers full of which were 
conveyed to the royal treasury. 

One might doubt, whether he were reading history, or the 
wildest and most imaginative, satirical romance, but that 
Henry's original proclamation of November 16, 1538, begin- 
ning with the words, " Whereas, Thomas a Becket, sometime 
archbishop of Canterbury ," •{• &c, &c, is still extant, as well as 
the bull of Pope Paul III., of December 17, of the same year, 
relating the whole affair at length. 

Farther than this, he completed the suppression of all the 
remaining monasteries and religious houses, confiscating their 

* See Cromwell's letter to Wyatt, ambassador in Germany. Collier, ii 152, apud 
Lin<rard, vi. 283. 
+ See the originals in note to page 2T6, vol. vi. Lingard's Hist. Eng. 



228 THE FAMILY OF REGINALD POLE. 

property, and bestowing their lands and tenements on his 
friends and courtiers; and, finally, compelled parliament to 
grant him subsidies of two-tenths, and two-fifteenths, within 
twelve months, to remunerate him for the trouble he had been 
at, in effecting these reforms, and the expences, he had been 
put to, in confiscating and converting, to his own use, lands, 
dwellings, tenements, personals, treasures, rents, and revenues, 
to an amount now wholly incalculable, but supposed by some 
writers to have equalled one-twentieth part of all the values 
then vested in England, though this is probably an excessive 
valuation. 

Nor was this singular being, singular mixture of cruelty 
and puerility, sense and folly, strength and weakness, content 
with burning obscure priests and wretched booksellers, who 
dared to publish unauthorized translations of the holy writ ; nor 
even, with the torturing to death, in a manner too horrible to 
bear relation, of the venerable Doctor Abell, and the aged Friar 
Forrest, confessor of the late Queen Katharine, the latter because 
he would not disclose the secrets of his royal penitent's confes- 
sional, but he must needs imbrue his hands, to the shoulders, 
in the noblest blood of England, the closest akin to himself, 
the most intimately connected with all the greatest deeds, the 
grandest memories of the empire. 

To avenge himself on Reginald Pole, whom he despaired 
of bringing himself within reach of his vengeance, he caused to 
be arrested, in one day, Henry Courtenay, marquess of Exe- 
ter, and the marchioness, his wife ; Lord Montague, and Geof- 
frey Pole, brothers of the cardinal ; their mother, the aged 
Countess of Salisbury, the last of the high blood of the old 
Plantagenets ; Sir Edward Neville, the brother of Lord Ab- 
ergavenny ; Sir Nicholas Carew, master of the horse; and 



ANNE OF CLEVES. 229 

two Cornish gentlemen, named Kendall, and Quintrell ; all 
of whom were accused of high treason on the most frivolous 
pretences, not one of them for overt acts, but only for words 
spoken, the most trivial and inoffensive, that can be imagined. 

Of these, Geoffrey Pole escaped, it is supposed, by bearing 
evidence against his comrades. The aged Countess of Salis- 
bury was retained in the tower, with her grandson, and Ger- 
trude, marchioness of Exeter, against none of whom was there 
any shadow of such evidence, as even Henry dared produce, 
before such courts as he employed ; who seem to have re- 
garded it as a matter of necessity, in respect of the king's 
honor, to sentence to death all whom he chose to send up for 
trial. The rest suffered the extreme penalty of the law, and 
died by decapitation ; except the two commoners, who under- 
went all the atrocious horrors of the sentence. 

Still, Henry's fiendish heart could not be satiated, until he 
had wounded the cardinal in the tenderest point, by the slaughter 
of his revered mother, the Countess of Salisbury ; whom he 
detained in the tower, perhaps in some sort as a hostage, but 
unquestionably resolute to destroy her, so soon as a fitting op- 
portunity should occur. 

After this interval of widowhood, unable longer to endure 
the state of celibacy, he determined to listen to the suggestion 
of Cromwell, who, alarmed at the growing intimacy of alliance 
between Charles and the French king, advised him to form a 
counterpoise to the strength of this confederacy, by allying 
himself to the German princes of the Smalcaldic, Lutheran 
league. Anne, the sister of the reigning Duke of Cieves, was 
the lady selected for this doubtful honor, and envoys being 
sent to inspect her, and reporting of her favorably, as a large, 
tall personage, of comely stature, and queenly deportment, 



230 HENRY DISAPPOINTED. 

bringing with them, moreover, a portrait of the princess, by 
Holbein, which represented her as very handsome, the royal 
voluptuary expressed himself satisfied ; the match was con- 
tracted ; and the lady elect was escorted in great pomp, by 
her own kinsmen, to Calais, where she was met by Lord 
Southampton, the lord high admiral of England, and a splen- 
did train of gentlemen and nobles. 

On New Year's eve, the king, who was impatient, as a child 
for a new toy, to catch a glance of his young and much lauded 
bride, rode on to Rochester, where he met her, with the intent 
to look on her, that he might, as he termed it, " nourish love." 
Awful was his disappointment, fearful his fury, when he saw 
her, large, indeed, and well shaped in person, but coarse-com- 
plexioned, with irregular features, and deeply pitted with the 
small pox. She had no accomplishments, moreover, no graces 
of air, no skill in dance or song, she could not even converse 
with him, in his native tongue. To a man like him, above all 
things, a connoisseur in beauty ; an admirer of all kinds of art 
and grace; himself a musician, a composer, a poet, with an 
ear exquisitely attuned to all sweet sounds ; a lover, who had 
possessed the stately dignity of the majestic and right-royal 
Katharine, the voluptuous loveliness and perfect gracefulness 
of the admirably accomplished Anne, the gentle charms of the 
soft and placid Seymour ; above all, to a fierce, coarse sensu- 
alist, who regarded woman as the merest Circassian Odalisque, 
the rage of frenzied disgust, which poor Anne of Cleves, with 
her high German accent, her coarse, scarred features, and her 
gorgeous, yet ungraceful, attire and attendance, must have 
produced, can be imagined more easily than described. He 
swore, in his blunt, brutal humor, that she was no better than 
" a great Eianders brood mare," and that he would none of 



BOTH GLAD TO PART. 231 

her ; and charged Cromwell, as he had devised, to find, as he 
he regarded his head, some method of dissolving this odious 
contract. 

When no mode of evasion could be discovered, and when 
he perceived, as he said, that " there was no remedy, but he 
must needs against his will put his head into that noose," he 
reluctantly consented to celebrate his nuptials, which were per- 
formed with unwonted splendor, at Greenwich, on January 6th, 
being the Epiphany, or feast of kings ; but, from that day 
forth, the fall of Cromwell was dated. After the consumma- 
tion of his marriage, Henry, with his wonted brutality, en- 
deavored to depreciate her character, as he did her person, 
speaking of the one, as if she had not come a pure maiden to 
his bed ; and of the other, as no man, possessing even a shadow 
of the feelings or delicacy of a man, would speak of the lowest 
and most downfallen of the sex. 

During the brief time that he cohabited with her, he made 
pomp, and solemn pageants and processions, afford an excuse 
for eschewing her privacy; yet so rude and brutal was his 
conduct, that when Wriothesley, the meanest, basest, and most 
sordid of Henry's low-born parasites, rudely broke to her the 
king's desire to annul the marriage, although she fainted on 
the first shock, partly at the insulting style, in which the foul 
pandar conveyed his message, partly from apprehension that 
she was destined to share the fate of Anne Boleyn, she instantly 
consented to join with him, in procuring a divorce, and as- 
sented with alacrity to resign the title of queen, for that of the 
king's adopted sister, with a pension of three thousand pounds 
a year, and precedence over all ladies of his court, except his 
children, and his future consort. Probably, she was, to the 
full, as much rejoiced, as he, to be liberated from the bonds of 



232 CROMWKLL ATTAINTED. 

a wedlock, in which affection or liking never had a share, and 
which to joylessness and disgust must have combined no small 
share of awe and apprehension. 

But I must not anticipate ; for, before the divorce was car- 
ried out by act of parliament, and by means of a convocation 
of the clergy, principally on the untenable pretext of a pre- 
contract with the Prince of Lorraine, Cromwell was himself 
arrested, on charge of high treason, and condemned without 
trial by his peers, exhibition of evidence, or confession, by an 
act of attainder, passed, almost unanimously, by both houses 
of parliament, Cranmer alone for a while feebly interposing in 
his behalf, but finally surrendering him to his fate. The 
charges against him were groundless and futile ; the measure 
by which he was sentenced, without trial, by attainder, most 
iniquitous ; yet cannot any one compassionate him ; nor could 
he with right complain, if he were compelled to drink of the 
cup, he had himself brewed, first, for others. He was the 
original inventor, who suggested this diabolical mode of crim- 
inal procedure, and, like Perillus, the creator of the far-famed 
brazen bull, he was the first to perish by his own invention. 
!For, although many had been executed already, by process of 
attainder, the act had been, in all prior instances, founded on 
alleged confession of the accused; and, although the Countess 
of Salisbury now lay under sentence, awaiting death in the 
tower, under the same atrocious procedure, she was not brought 
to the scaffold until the ensuing year. 

On the 28th of July, 1540, he died by the axe, under the 
operation of the bill he had himself suggested ; one other in- 
stance of " the engineer hoist by his own petard." Not a tear 
was shed over his headless trunk. The great lords openly exult- 
ed, that the low-born tradesman, who had risen by cunningj base- . 



RELIGIOUS TERRORISM. 233 

ness, servility, and performance of all mean and ignoble offices, 
had fallen headlong from the highest seat, which he had so un- 
worthily attained, in the house of lords. The clergy tri- 
umphed over his downfall, as over the bitter enemy, who had, 
in his day of power, so cruelly triumphed over mother church. 
The loyers of liberty and justice rejoiced in secret that the 
manes of More and Fisher were at length appeased. The na- 
tion, at large, looked on his death as the just reward of the 
onerous taxation imposed on the realm, when the royal treas- 
ury was filled, or at least ought, of right, to have been filled, 
with the overflowing spoils of the plundered monasteries. 

His judicial murder was followed by a new form of religious 
terrorism. By the same parliament, which had attainted him, 
three Papists had been condemned to death for denying the 
supremacy, and three Protestants for holding heterodox opin- 
ions. Two and two, Protestant and Papist, the day after 
Cromwell's death, they were drawn on the same hurdles to 
Smithfield, from the tower, where they expiated, the former 
their heresy in the flames, the latter their treason by the dis- 
embowelling knife of the civil executioner. 

So impartially equal was the justice of this great, reforming 
monarch to both classes of his suffering subjects. 

After his divorce from the gentle, patient-minded, and no- 
ble Anne of Cleves, the modern Bluebeard did not remain 
long a widower ; for, at his own suggestion, doubtless, his 
lords humbly petitioned him, in consideration of his people's 
welfarej to venture on a fifth marriage, in the hope that God 
would bless him with a numerous issue. Anxious, as his 
whole career shows him ever to have been, for the good and 
happiness of his people, this pious monarch now lovingly con- 
descended to grant their prayer, the rather that it was so 



234 KATHARINE HOWARD. 

humbly tendered, and within a month Katharine Howard made 
her appearance at court as Queen. She was the daughter of 
that Lord Edmund Howard, who commanded the right wing 
of the English host at Flodden, since deceased ; niece to the 
Duke of Norfolk, and, of course, cousin to the unhappy Anne 
Boleyn, whose fate she was so soon to share. She had been 
brought up by the dowager Duchess of Norfolk— who ap- 
pears to have been a garrulous, half-doting beldame, ut- 
terly unfit for such a duty— and first attracted Henry's eye at 
a dinner party of the Bishop of Winchester, where she was 
present, it is said, as maid of honor to Queen Anne of Cleves. 
She was not a tall, commanding beauty of the king's favorite 
style, but very small, although beautifully shaped, extremely 
pretty, with winning ways, and, says Lord Herbert of Cher- 
bury, " by a notable appearance of honor, cleanness, and maid 
enly behavior, she won the king's heart." During about 
twelve months he lived with her in great content and delight, 
lavishing on her every mark of tenderness, confidence, and af- 
fection. He carried her with him in his progress to York, in 
the following year ; for it delighted him to have her, at all 
times, near to his person, and he professed to be more charmed 
with her, than with any of his preceding consorts. Immediately 
previous to their progress to York, there had been a trivial 
Romish insurrection in the north, headed by Sir John Neville, 
which was easily suppressed, but which, as usual, became a 
means of strengthening the adverse party, and afforded a cause 
for renewed bloodshed. 

Henry attributed it, as he did all Papistical disturbances, to 
Cardinal Pole, and seized the occasion to bring his mother, the 
aged Countess of Salisbury, so long a prisoner in the tower, at 
length to the scaffold. Then followed a scene of unexampled hor- 



THE COUNTESS OF SALISBURY. 235 

ror. The lion-hearted septuagenarian, the last of the long and glo- 
rious line of the Plantagenets, refused to bow her hoary head to 
ihe block, lest by so doing she should appear to admit herself 
guilty of treason ; not that she feared death — for what Planta- 
genet ever counted that worth a moment's thought? — but, in that 
fiery and defiant mood, not alien to the spirit of her mighty an- 
cestors, she strode to and fro on the scaffold, her features flushed 
with indignation, shaking her dishevelled locks of snow abroad, 
like the mane of an ancient lioness, and bidding the execution- 
ers " win her head as they could, if they would have it." At 
length, she was dragged violently to the block, where the head- 
man " slovenly butchered her, and stained the scaffold from veins 
enriched by all the royal blood of England." * 

But, alas ! ere long a sadder, " a darker departure was near" — 
even hers, the delicate, the beautiful, the notably maiden-looking 
Howard. It is a deep, a dreadful, a mysterious tragedy ; and, 
like that of her kinswoman and predecessor in the fearful jour- 
ney down that painful and bloody road, it defies all scrutiny. 

That there was a religious party, strongly set against Katha- 
rine, as there had been one against Anne, is not to be doubted. 
The Protestants detested the former, as the Catholics hated the 
latter, owing to the religions of the queens, whom they had, 
each in turn, supplanted ; and the reformers, with the Duke of 
Cleves, probably, himself at their head, believed that if the 
Howard could be disposed of, Anne of Cleves might resume 
the ascendency ; even as the Catholics had previously augured 
the same for Katharine of Arragon, if the Boleyn could be 
overthrown. 

That the charge did not originate with the reformers, though 

* Guthrie. Quoted by Miss Strickland, iv., 301. 



236 CHARGES AGAINST KATHARINE. 

they certainly brought it forward, and that it was not all a plot, 
is certain, from the partial confession of the sufferers. 

During the progress to the north, it appears that a person of 
the name of Lascelles came with information to Cranmer, that 
absolute proof could be brought, that the queen, while Mistress 
Catharine Howard, had continually admitted, previously to her 
royal marriage, a gentleman to her bed, of the name of Dere- 
ham, then page to the Duchess of Norfolk, in whose house they 
both resided ; and that this said Dereham, with certain women 
who had been privy to the whole affair at its origin, had been 
taken into the service of the royal household, and employed 
about the person of the queen. Henry and Katharine reached 
Hampton court on their return, just previous to the feast of All 
Saints, and on that day " the king revered his Maker, and gave 
him most hearty thanks for the good life he led and trusted 
to lead with his wife." The next day, while he was at mass, 
the archbishop placed in his hand a paper containing the infor- 
mation which he had received. Henry, for once in his life, was 
deeply grieved and perturbed; and, at length, disbelieving the 
charges, ordered a private inquiry to be held into the matter, 
without allowing anything thereof to reach the ears of the 
queen. Lascelles, his sister, who had been in the Duchess of 
Norfolk's household, and from whom the story originally came, 
Dereham himself, and others, were strictly examined ; when 
it came out that Dereham was not merely admitted to the 
queen's presence, but had been employed by her as her private 
secretary ; and that while at Lincoln, on the late royal progress, 
a gentleman of the name of Culpepper, of the privy chamber, 
and her kinsman on the mother's side, had remained in the 
queen's apartment, with none but herself and the lady Roche- 
fort — the same by whose testimony Anne Boleyn was convicted 



EVIDENCES AGAINST HER. 237 

of incest with her own brother, and the husband of the wit- 
ness — from eleven at night, until two of the morning. This 
was considered sufficient whereon to proceed farther ; and the 
council went on to visit and examine the queen. At first, she 
protested her innocence, fell into fits, and seemed half frantic ; 
but, at a later visit from the Archbishop Cranmer, who brought 
her some assurance from Henry of mercy, she was induced to 
promise, under the most solemn oaths and obligations, to an- 
swer truly all questions which should be put to her. Then, on 
examination, she admitted the fatal fact, of ante-connubial inter- 
course with Dereham, who, it seems, had been in the habit of 
calling her his wife ; but she insisted that all the favors he had 
ever obtained from her had been by violence ; and she vehe- 
mently asseverated that from the hour of her marriage, she had 
been true wife to the king. 

To do Henry justice, it must be said that he does not seem 
to have, for once in his life, in any wise thirsted after her 
blood ; and that her life might have been spared, if, by admit- 
ting a precontract, she had left room for his liberation from her, 
by divorce. But this she could not be brought to do ; proba- 
bly not understanding the urgency of Cranmer, who endeavored 
strenuously to obtain such an avowal from her, clearly for the 
purpose of saving her, though he dare not too openly declare 
his object. She persisted that all he had ever had from her, he 
had by violence, and this which she thought should defend, did 
in fact destroy her. 

Culpepper and Dereham were tried, and found guilty of high 
treason, and were left to suffer their penalty of crime. The 
evidence, certainly, would not now be held sufficient for con- 
viction ; but it must be admitted, that the presumption was 
strongly against Dereham, at least, in consequence, after the ad- 



288 Katharine's attainder. 

mitted relations between himself and the queen, of his reap- 
pearing suddenly at court, -where he had been unknown before, 
simultaneously, or nearly so, with her marriage ; and of his 
being appointed, in connection with, at least, one other individ- 
ual, privy to what had gone before, to a post of trust, giving 
him easy access to her person. 

To the hapless queen, the same reasoning forcibly applies. 
It is, indeed, possible, that the depraved persons in question, 
forced themselves, by threats of revelation, which to her were 
threats of destruction, upon her unwillingly ; and that she had 
no ill intention in retaining them ; still her case is one of early 
sin and shame, perhaps repented, but so unfortunately mixed 
up with grave later suspicions, that it is equally dangerous and 
difficult to absolve or to condemn her. 

The case against Culpepper is entirely different ; no guilt or 
suspicion of guilt attaches to him ; and his death was clearly 
as illegal, as it was unjust and cruel. 

Under the present state of law in England, no one of these 
persons could be convicted on the evidence. The hapless 
young queen was never put on her trial, or suffered to speak a 
word in her own behalf; a privilege which was not denied to her 
kinswoman, Anne Boleyn, who, though she might not convince 
her judges, or avert her doom, yet left a burning record of her el- 
oquence and artless pathos to plead for her, with a posterity 
kinder and less unforgiving than the age in which she lived. 
Attainted on her own confession, Katharine was sentenced to 
be beheaded, with the Lady Rochefort, as her aider and abet- 
tor, and Culpepper and Dereham as her accomplices. 

Cruel and persevering attempts were made by the king, to 
involve all her family — the old Duchess of Norfolk, Lord Wil 
liam Howard, her uncle, the Countess of Bridgewater, and 



Katharine's death, 239 

Anne Howard, the wife of her brother Henry, in her ruin ; for 
the blood of the old duchess, especially, he seems to have 
thirsted, owing to the fact of her having abstracted some pa- 
pers of Dereham's from a trunk in her possession, which he 
conceived to have contained evidence on the point in question — 
the actual commission of adultery after marriage, between the 
parties. The judges, however, for once, were firm against him. 
Culpepper and Dereham, the latter after being most unmerci- 
fully racked, as a person of his rank might, it seems, at that 
time legally be, in order to extract evidence fatal to the queen, 
though wholly without effect, were executed; the former by 
the axe, the latter by the gibbet and the knife, hanged, drawn 
and quartered. It was two months later before the queen and 
Lady Rochefort were beheaded, within the tower, meeting their 
fate with perfect calmness and decorum. The unhappy How- 
ard died, the first, professing, with her last breath, her penitence 
for her early sins, though declaring her innocence of the crime 
for which she suffered. The Lady Rochefort is said — but I hold 
this more than doubtful — to have expressed herself as satisfied 
to die, for that she had betrayed her husband to death by her 
false accusation of Queen Anne Boleyn, but that otherwise she 
was conscious of no crime. 

Several things — among other the fact of Craumer having 
felt himself in danger, as a favorer of the new learning, and 
of his having completely recovered his own position and that 
of his party, by means of the eclat they gained by this de- 
tected plot, as well as his extreme and evident anxiety to save 
the life of the queen, seem to indicate a consciousness, that she 
was not guilty of that portion of the crime for which she suf- 
fered, and which was not certainly proved against her. Pre- 
sumptions, however, as certainly were adverse to her, and that 



240 EX POST FACTO ENACTMENT. 

was an age in which presumptions lighter far than these, were 
held to be, in criminal cases of this nature, 

.... "confirmations strong 
As proofs of holy writ." 

All her relatives, who had been included in the bill of at- 
tainder, were found guilty of misprision of treason, including 
the old duchess, for not having revealed their kinswoman's indis- 
cretion before she was elevated to the royal bed ; but the king 
himself seems to have been aware of the absurdity of such a 
procedure, since he shortly afterward pardoned all the subordi- 
nate accessories. 

In order, however, to guard against such contingencies in future, 
it was made misprision of treason in any person knowing or sus- 
pecting the incontinence of any woman about to marry with 
the king, who should not reveal the same ; and high treason 
in any woman, who, passing for a true maid, not in very deed 
being such, should not disclose her unchastity to him. 

At this enactment the people made exceeding merry, de- 
claring that the king had nothing left for it now, but to marry 
a widow — as he, indeed, did soon afterward — since, surely, no 
single woman would take him at such risk. There seems to 
be some difficulty in fixing the exact date of Katharine How- 
ard's execution, some historians making it to have occurred in 
1542, and others in 1543. The 12th of February was the 
day, beyond doubt, and, I conceive, of the former year, since 
we must otherwise suppose that a year and four months elapsed 
between the discovery of her alleged guilt, in November 10, 
1541, and the infliction of her punishment ; which savors neither 
of the then state of English jurisprudence, nor of the headlong 
rapidity of Henry in the determination of such cases. 



the king's book. 241 

Immediately after the conclusion of this sad and bloody 
business, the king, as usual, turned himself to a directly oppo- 
site course, and betook himself to piety, and to the disciplining 
his subjects on religious topics. He, this year, prohibited the 
use of Tyndal's version of the holy scriptures, as " crafty, false 
and untrue ; " and ordered the authorized version to be pub- 
lished without note or comment. He prohibited the reading 
even of the authorized copy in public ; restricted the use of it 
in families, to the houses of gentlemen of rank and nobles ; and 
even its private study to householders, and ladies of gentle 
birth. Still, desiring to provide for the people of the Christian 
church, of which he was himself, under Christ, the supreme 
head, some work of religious instruction, he caused two com- 
mittees of prelates to digest a new code of doctrines and cer- 
emonies. On this work three years were expended, in elabo- 
rating it, and, on the thirtieth day of April, 1543, it was pro- 
duced under the title of " a necessary doctrine and erudition 
for every christened man ; " * but it was generally known by 
the name of the " king's book," and continued to be, until, with 
the accession of the next sovereign, the religion of the kingdom 
was again changed, the only recognized standard of English 
orthodoxy. 

During the last ten or twelve years, constant dissensions, and 
even forays, skirmishings, invasions and counter invasions had 
been in process on the Scottish and English borders, there be- 
ing a powerful Anglo-Protestant party in the neighboring king- 
dom, and a yet more powerful French and Scottish Papistical 
party ; to which Francis, following an hereditary policy of the 
French kings, was lending constant aid and comfort, to the 
great wrath of Henry. His sister Margaret, the queen dowa- 

* Lingard, vi., 319. 

K 16 



242 DEATH OF JAMES V. 

ger, widow of James, who fell at Flodden, and wedded a third 
time, to her paramour Methuen, having been divorced by Doug- 
las, had lost all power in the realm, and sunk into the ob- 
scurity of private life. Her son, James V., Henry's nephew, 
who had married his uncle's lady love, the beautiful Marie de 
Longueville, determinedly adhered to the cause of Rome, and 
espoused French politics. Enraged at some trifling defeat of 
a body of horse at Haldenrigs, just within the Scottish border, 
Henry now declared war, laid claim to the crown of Scotland, 
as its feudal superior, and ordered the Duke of Norfolk to levy 
an army at York, and invade his nephew's country, which he 
did with success, burning many towns, and laying waste the 
marches far and near, till want of provisions compelled him to 
fall back, and return to Berwick. 

Thither James, having levied an army of thirty thousand 
men, hastened to pursue him ; but, having advanced so far as 
to the field of Fala, his men mutinied, refused to cross the bor- 
ders, and all that he could do was to dismiss his troops, pro- 
ceed in person to the western marches, and order Lord Max- 
well, the warden, to enter England with ten thousand men, and 
remain in that kingdom as many days as Norfolk had tarried 
in Scotland. Maxwell, however, was attacked and totally 
routed, with the loss of the whole royal train of artillery, two 
earls, five barons, and two hundred gentlemen, prisoners, by 
Lord Wharton, the English warden. James, despairing, dis- 
eased and broken-hearted, retired to Caerlaverock castle, where 
he pined for awhile, and when he heard that his beautiful wife 
had borne him a female child, afterward the most beautiful and 
the most unhappy of queens, Mary of Scotland, died with the 
prophetic words upon his lips, " Woe is me ! the crown came 
with a lassie, and with a lassie it will pass away ! " 



PEACE WITH CHARLES V. 243 

For the possession of that infant child, arose instant rivalry 
between Henry and Francis, each coveting her for the bride 
of his young son, as a means of annexing her dominions to his 
own. Hence war broke out once more between those ancient 
rivals, France and England ; and, in February, 1543, peace and 
amity were once more established between the king and- his 
imperial nephew ; to gratify whom Henry consented to restore 
Mary by act of parliament, to her right of succession in blood, 
though without any mention of her legitimacy ; by which 
means he avoided the difficulty of admitting that he had 
wronged her mother. War was then made, as in old times, 
conjointly by the imperialists and a body of six thousand En- 
glish auxiliaries ; but, although they gained some trivial advan- 
tages, the campaign was on the whole unimportant. 

During the same period, however, Henry had effected much 
more nearer home, and had thoroughly carried out a measure 
of reform of the greatest importance to his country ; the com- 
plete incorporation, namely, of the principality of Wales with 
England, and the abolition of all the distinctions and jurisdic- 
tions of the two portions of it ; the one divided into shires, and 
governed by the laws of England, the other consisting of one 
hundred and forty-one several lordships, all under several gov- 
ernments and jarring laws. It was, in 1536, reduced into the 
regular form of counties, and became, under English laws, a 
homogeneous district of the nation, as it has continued ever 
since. He, likewise, so far pacified Ireland, as it is called, as 
any sovereign, perhaps, since, certainly before him, has ever suc- 
ceeded in doing, whether by arms or by conciliation. At least' 
he is the first who assumed the title of king of Ireland ; of the 
church of which, as well as of that of England, he became in the 
same year which saw Wales incorporated with England, su- 



244 KATHARINE PARR, OF KENDAL. 

preme head. It was not, however, until within a few days 
before the execution of Katharine Howard, his fifth wife, 
in 1542, that he assumed the title of king of Ireland. That 
unhappy lady, therefore, died the first queen of the United 
Kingdoms. 

We have now brought Henry, the uxorious, fairly down to 
the period, when he wedded his sixth and last wife, Katharine 
Parr of Kendal, a double widow, first of Lord Borough, and 
then of Neville, lord Latimer, happier in this than any of her 
predecessors, that she survived her lord, preserving his regard 
to the last ; though she once nearly lost it and her life together ; 
at a period of his life, when all the fits of sanguinary frenzy to 
which he had been formerly liable, were but as passing gusts 
compared to tropical tornadoes, to those which now possessed 
him. Yet, in his wildest moods, she seems, although a delicate 
and gentle creature, of small stature, and mild and feminine 
demeanor, more to have swayed him, than any of his consorts, 
even her first stately and majestic namesake. 

She is remarkable, moreover, as the first Protestant English 
queen of England ; for so far is it from being true, that " gos- 
pel light " as stated in my motto, chosen from Gray's exqui- 
site fragment on education and government, " first dawned from 
Anna's eyes," that she was as completely a Romanist as ever 
kneeled at confessional, except that, like Henry, and for the 
came cause, she repudiated the supremacy of the pope, because 
adverse to her own interests and elevation. Her elevation to 
the throne seems to have given the most general satisfaction 
throughout England ; she was a lady of no less genius and 
learning, than piety, morals, grace and accomplishment ; speci- 
mens of her handiwork in embroidery are still preserved at 
Sizergh castle, and other places which she honored with her 



THE CHILDREN OF HENRY. 245 

residence ; her Latin correspondence with Roger Ascham, 
and the learned men of the universities, extant to this time, 
are fully equal to the style of Latinity of the day. But what 
most shows her influence over the king, more even than the ad- 
mirable way in which she soothed his peevish and almost in- 
sane irritability, now exacerbated and exaggerated almost to 
actual madness by an inveterate and incurable ulcer in his thigh, 
the consequence, undoubtedly, of his gluttony and excess in wine, 
to both of which, as he advanced in years, he became much ad- 
dicted, was her perfect management of the royal children, now 
wholly committed to her charge. 

To conciliate the affections, govern the tempers, cultivate the 
parts of the children of three queeiis, so widely differing in 
character, religion, temper and fortunes, as Katharine of Arra- 
gon, the stately Spanish lady, the Catholic daughter of Isabella, 
the most Catholic queen; as Anne Boleyn, the light, witty, 
brilliant, impulsive French coquette, to whom religion was but 
an outward vestment, not " that within, which passes shew ; " 
as Jane Seymour, the moderate, gentle, calm, feminine English- 
woman ; with parts never exceeding mediocrity, was in itself 
no small task, no unarduous duty. 

But, when we look at the children themselves, at the nations 
which were hanging, breathless partizans, on the ascendency of 
each — when we consider Mary, cold, taciturn, grave, suffering 
constantly from excruciating neuralgic headaches, already a se- 
vere religionist, and a learned and accurate scholar, who had, as 
yet, shown no tokens, however, of that hard-heartedness and 
cruelty, which were developed in her as she rose to power, and 
which probably were caused by the influence of others over 
her, rather than by innate illness of disposition — Mary, on 
whom hung the hopes of Spain, of the Empire, of Rome, the 



246 PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY. 

idol of the old Eoman party in England, who trusted in her 
again to see their church restored to its pristine grandeur — when 
we consider Elizabeth, already headlong, impetuous, full of the 
hot Tudor blood, the very daughter of very father, she, too, 
learned, overflowing with a strong, steady genius — Elizabeth, 
already the chosen head of the party of the Anglican church, 
and looked up to by the preeminently English party, as to her 
one day destined to afford the strongest type of the most En- 
glish sovereign — when we look at Edward, gentle, kind-tem- 
pered, with some small taste for letters, but timid, mediocre, 
formal, narrow-minded, wholly under the dominion of the 
strongest intellect near him, and those intellects attached to the 
strictest Puritanism — it will be easy to see, how difficult and 
dangerous a part she had to play. 

It is true, that by the execution of Katharine Howard, who 
belonged strongly to that faith, to which her powerful descen- 
dants still adhere, by the elevation of the present queen to the 
throne, and by the strong influence which the Seymours had 
obtained over the king, through their relationship to his " best 
loved wife," Jane, and to his heir, prince Edward, the anti-Ro- 
mish, and even the Protestant party in the kingdom had gained 
a strong ascendency, which in fact, during Henry's life-time, 
they never wholly lost. 

Still, to deny the seven sacraments, to doubt the real pres- 
ence, to dispute the efficacy of prayers to the saints, masses for 
the dead, auricular confession or supreme unction — in short, to 
be openly a Protestant-was to go to the stake just as certainly 
as to deny the king's supremacy, was to be gibbeted, drawn 
and quartered for high treason. 

And Katharine was a Protestant, with all the deep and fer- 
vent belief of her tranquil, sincere, and self-possessed soul. 



BALANCE OF KELIGIOKS. 247 

And Katharine, though she was the bloated tyrant's " best, 
dearest wife, and sweetheart," would have been consigned to 
the flames, with as little scruple or hesitation, as would the 
lowest-born handmaiden, the poorest clerk, in all England. 

And ever the greedy eyes of the Catholics were watching her, 
sharpened by interest and hatred, to catch her in any lapse of 
faith, any offence against orthodoxy, that they might give her 
to the fagot, as they alleged the Protestants had given her 
predecessor to the block. 

A strange age, truly, when the two great religions of the 
world hung balanced on the smiles and tears, the sorrows and 
the sins, the misery and the blood, of royal ladies ; and when 
a whispered word, a stolen kiss, came to be watched and sought 
for, as the casting weight which was to turn the scale between 
balanced creeds. 

During her very honeymoon, owing to the ill will of Gar- 
diner to the royal bride, Persons, Testwood, and Filmer were 
passed through flames to a celestial crown, for holding to the 
new religion. Marbeck, against whom no evidence was ad- 
duced, but a few MS. notes on the bible, and some hundred 
pages of a Latin concordance, found in his house, in process of 
arrangement, by the informers, would have followed them to 
the stake ; but Katharine contrived that the concordance, 
should be shown to Henry, who, with all his vices, was learned 
himself, and loved learning. 

" Alas ! poor Marbeck ! " he exclaimed, moved for once by 
an honest and manly feeling. " It would be well for thine ac- 
cusers, if they had employed their time no worse ! " * and so 
he pardoned him. Shortly afterward, encouraged by his suc- 

* Soaine's History of the Reformation. Quoted by Miss Strickland, iv., Kath. 
Parr, 81. 



248 PRIVATE LIFE OF ROYALTY. 

cess thus far, Gardiner struck a blow, through his tools, Dr. 
London and Symonds, at some higher persons, members of 
the queen's household — Dr. Haines, dean of Exeter, and pre- 
bend of Windsor, Sir Philip Hoby and his lady ; Sir Thomas 
Carden, and others of the royal household, and if this blow 
had told successfully, there is no doubt but that the queen 
would have been the next accused. But, in order to ensure 
their conviction, false evidence must be used, by supposititious 
documents introduced by one Ockley, the clerk of the court, 
among the papers of the accused. The plot was discovered to 
the queen ; the forged documents were seized, London and 
Symonds, not knowing what had happened, perjured them- 
selves ; were tried for that crime, convicted, led through the 
streets of London, on horseback, with their faces to the horses' 
tails, and pilloried, with papers on their foreheads setting forth 
their crime — and so the present danger passed, and the mat- 
ter ended. 

In the meantime, Katharine had as completely won the af- 
fections of the royal children, which, to the day of her death, 
she never lost, as she had that of the king, their father, and of 
the best of his subjects ; and there is no doubt, that much, the 
best, part of all their characters is in some degree to be attributed 
to her education. The Latin style of Mary and Elizabeth, 
who were both proficients in writing that terse and difficult 
language, is almost identical with her own ; and the fine pen- 
manship of Edward VI., her step-son, closely resembles her 
beautiful manuscript. She lived on the most intimate terms 
of friendship with them all, a sweet, domestic, highly accom- 
plished English matron, rather than a mighty queen ; as is 
clearly shown by many notes, still extant, on familiar subjects 
which passed between those royal ladies, as also between 



FRENCH CAMPAIGN. 249 

Katharine and her predecessor, Anne of Cleves, whose Prot- 
estantism was probably another link between them ; and as is 
farther proved by the lists of prices, paid for little mutual 
presents, and tokens of affection, which have casually come 
down to our days — beautiful memorials of the past, rescued 
like waifs from the ocean of time — as charges on the daybooks 
of the royal expenditures. 

In the year following his marriage, "July 14, 1544, Henry 
crossed the seas from Dover to Calais, in a ship with sails of 
cloth of gold." * He went in compliance with a treaty of of- 
fensive alliance, entered into with the emperor, in the year be- 
fore, by which they were to reclaim Burgundy for Charles, and 
the French possessions of the English crown for Henry ; and 
on refusal, make war in common. " On the 25th, he took the 
field in person, armed at all points, mounted on a great cour- 
ser, and so rode out of Calais, with a princely train, attended 
by Sir William Herbert, the queen's brother in-law, bearing 
his head piece and spear, and followed by the henxmen, bravely 
horsed and apparelled. Katharine's brother, the Earl of Es- 
sex, was chief captain of the men-at-arms, in this expedition." 

Before setting out, Henry created his queen, as he had done 
his first Katharine, in his previous invasion of France, queen 
regent of the realm, during his absence ; Hertford, the uncle 
of Prince Edward, was to assist her, and be ever resident at 
her court, and attendant on her person. If he were forced to 
be absent, then Cranmer was to attend her, and Sir William 
Petre, Lord Parr of Horton, the Bishop of Winchester, and 
Wriothesley, were to complete her council. 

By an act of parliament, also passed before his departure, 

♦Miss Strickland, vol. iv., Kath. Parr, 31. 

K* 



250 henry's succession. 

he finally settled his succession, which had been settled and un- 
settled with every successive validation or invalidation of mar- 
riage, legitimating or illegitimating of heirs, five or six times, 
at least, since his accession. This was, indeed, final ; and as it 
did actually regulate the succession, is worthy of notice. 

In it he condescends to mention only two of his marriages, 
those of Jane Seymour, and Katharine Parr, passing over all 
the others, as if they had never existed at all. He appoints 
Prince Edward his heir ; and, failing him or his heirs male, 
then, any issue he may have by his most entirely beloved 
Queen Katharine. Failing issue by Katharine, then the issue 
of any other lawful wife ; and failing all these, his daughter 
Mary and her issue, and on failure of her line also, his 
daughter Elizabeth, and her heirs forever. Who those daugh- 
ters were, or by what mothers, he does not condescend to 
name, lest he should be led into an acknowledgment of their 
legitimacy, or the lawfulness of the marriages of the queens, 
from whom they sprung. 

This French campaign, though Henry was at the head of a 
mighty force of thirty thousand Englishmen and fifteen thou- 
sand imperialists, did not effect much ; the king persisting in 
besieging Boulogne, which detained him two months by a des- 
perate resistance, instead of advancing on Paris, joining the 
emperor, and closing the campaign by a splendid dash at the 
capital. Still the reduction of Boulogne was well and gal- 
lantly effected, and its conquest afforded the king an opportu- 
nity of returning home in triumph, with the pomp and splen- 
dor of a great conqueror. 

In the following year, the war was carried on principally at 
sea ; where Francis endeavored, in vain, to acquire a superi- 
ority. But, although the king's great ship, the Mary Rose, 



henry's last peace. 251 

■was sunk before his own eyes at Portsmouth, the English 
squadrons kept the seas, the French rarely daring to exchange 
a few cannon shots, and, both in the channel and in the Neth- 
erlands the war languished, for want of moneys. The king's 
vast prodigalities, though he was esteemed the most wealthy 
prince in Europe, had utterly exhausted his treasuries ; and, 
although he had recourse to every unkingly and unmanly plan 
to recruit them, extorting money for pardons, manufacturing 
false charges of treason, and misprision of treason, in order to 
countenance such proceedings, and even pillaging the jewel 
boxes, seizing the wardrobes, and confiscating the dowries' of 
his repudiated and beheaded wives, he was now reduced to the 
narrowest straits for money, and was, in fact, unable to main- 
tain the war for want of it. 

After great difficulties, by debasement of coin, and levying 
contributions and benevolences from the clergy, he'contrived 
to raise sufficient means, during this winter, for the ordinary 
needs of the government; and, at length, in June, 1546, a 
peace was agreed on with Francis, which was far longer of 
duration than most measures, which depended in any re- 
spect for their origin or conclusion, on Henry's pleasure or 
caprices. 

It endured until he, who made it, had gone to that place, 
where there are no wars of mortal making ; but where there 
is, whether he found it, or the'y, whom he had sent thither, in 
such multitudes, through pain and tribulation, by fire and the 
sword, that peace forever and forever, which passeth under- 
standing. 

From this day, that of his return, I mean, to England, to 
the end, the life of Henry all is horror — a mere repetition of 
the dreadful circumstances, which surrounded the end of Ma- 



252 STRIFE OF RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 

rius, the great Roman plebeian, in whose dying ears rang for- 
ever the knell — 

" Asivcti yap xoirai xaj Ktfoi^ofxsvoio Xiou'log" * 

The dread of treason, in the king, had brought forth blood- 
shed. The dread of bloodshed, in the subject, had brought 
forth treason to the king, 

To gain his own ends he had broken up the church, into 
two parties, and played one against the other, so long as he 
had strength and health and power to play them. But, as 
health failed, and strength, and power of will, as energy de- 
parted, and suspicion only and irritability remained and increased 
upon him, the two parties of the church played out the game, 
the one against the other, each striving to keep the name and 
the authority of the king with them, flattering his passions, 
and pandering to his infirmities, in order to strike with the 
sword, which he could himself no longer wield. 

One day, it was Gardiner and the Chancellor Wriothesley 
who, working on his jealous suspicions against the heretics, 
caused the young, beautiful, and delicate Anne Askew to be 
racked to extremity, and to die at the stake — who, taking ad- 
vantage of some indiscretion on the part of the queen, actu- 
ally obtained from him an order for her arrest and committal 
to the tower as a heretic. The next day, it was the Seymours, 
the low-born uncles of the young Prince Edward, who, leaning 
to the side of the " new learning," only because the Norfolks, 
their bitterest enemies, held to the old, played upon his 
dying weakness, and stimulated his ancient'jealousies into what 
may, I think, be deemed real madness. 

The queen's rare virtue and prudence carried her scathless 

* "For dreadful is the den even of the dying lion." 



henky's last crimes. 253 

through the perils of the deep-laid treachery, which had so 
nearly overwhelmed her. All that "Wriothesley gained by 
his base and insidious scheme, when he entered the garden of 
Hampton Court, where Henry was taking the air, with his 
" sweetheart," with whom he had again become " perfect 
friends," having the guards at his heels to convey her to the 
tower, was to be called, " Beast and fool and knave " — all 
three of which he indeed was — and to be bade, "Avaunt from 
his presence ! " 

To dwell on the imbecility of crime and cruelty, as it dwin- 
dles into the weakness of the last ashes of itself, is in itself a 
painful task and horrible. But when that last weakness is 
perverted and distorted to the commission of yet worse wick- 
edness, than the strength and maturity of its power had con- 
ceived, it leads us to doubt whether the tyrant himself, or the 
age of tyranny, which he created and fostered to his own de- 
struction, were most savage and tyrannical. 

Of all Henry's atrocious crimes, those for which he has 
been censured the most unsparingly, condemned with the deep- 
est condemnation, are precisely those, in my thinking, of which 
he is the least guilty. 

While I do not believe — God forbid! — in the old Greek 
tragic creed of fate, that ancestral crime must produce crime, 
and reproduce it, generation after generation, I do believe, for 
I have read it in history, and seen it in nature, that blood be- 
gets the thirst of blood, even as wine begets the thirst of 
wine. 

The drunkard in blood, as the drunkard in wine, under the 
curse of habit, when the cup is thrust before his lips, must 
drink. Wo be to those who administer the cup ! 

When the noble and gallant, the chivalrous and lettered 



254 DEATH OF HENRY. 

Surrey was sent to death by the written mandate of the king, 
his swollen and paralyzed hands could not guide the pen which 
signed the fatal warrant. 

When the doom of his father, Norfolk, was decided by the 
same persons, who had pointed the wavering mind, and guided 
the palsied fingers of the blood-haunted despot against the life 
of his whilome favorites, they could not find life enough in those 
wretched mortal fingers to do their bloody business. A stamp 
was used, instead of a sign manual. But before the stamped 
warrant could be brought into operation, the spirit of the king 
had departed to the judgment place — perhaps, to bear testi- 
mony against those who had perverted his last judgment, and 
laid upon his memory even a deeper stain of blood, than that 
which rests upon his soul. 

He died on the 28th of January, 1547, in the thirty-eighth 
year of his reign, and the fifty-sixth of his age, the most pow- 
erless, most useless, most worthless, monarch of his day, who 
might have been the greatest, had he only possessed goodness, 
in- a remote degree proportionate to his talents, his capacities, 
his opportunities. 

It is wonderful to relate, because it is, evidently, accidental 
and not providential, that the leaden coffin, in which his em- 
balmed and perfumed body was enclosed, — in the wretched 
mockery of giving a sweet savor to royalty, even within the 
jaws of corruption — being suffered to fall upon the pavement, 
the gore oozed out, and as the mad, epileptic nun, Barton, and 
the fanatic friar, Peyfco, had predicted to him, to his teeth — 
" The dogs did lick Up his blood, as they licked up that of 
Ahab ! " 

It is worthy of remark, that of all the changes which this bad 
king, and worse man, wrought, simply for his own profit and 



THE ENDS OF PROVIDENCE. 255 

self-gratification, not one operated as he intended and desired 
that it should operate. 

The cherished heir male, whom he so deeply sinned to have 
his heir, died heirless, after a vain attempt to create an intol- 
erant, dominant religion, of that Puritan heresy which his father 
had most abhorred and persecuted. 

The daughter of the Spanish queen, the right royal Katha- 
rine, whom he had robbed of all, but honor, reinstated, through 
blood and fire, the church, which he had, as he thought, pros- 
trated forever ; and all but made England Spanish, and the 
church of England, Romish. 

The daughter of the woman, whom he had stigmatized with 
incest, not content to slay, completed the work, in which he 
would not have that she should put a finger, but completed it, 
not as Henry would, but as God would have it ! — completed 
it, so that out of the worst English despotism, grew the 
most perfect English liberty — out of the deepest Romish dark- 
ness, dawned the most lustrous light, the dayspring from on 
high, which, once arisen, can go down no more nor be put out 
forever. 



KATHARINE -OF ARRAGOtf. 

MARRIED, 1509; REPUDIATED, 1533. 



TnE qneen of earthly queens; — She is noble born; 
A nd, like her true nobility, she has 
Carried herself toward me. 

SnAKSPEAKE, K. Henry VIII. 




ngared ly J, C Butm* 



■ 






■ 



KATHARINE OF ARRAGON. 

BORN, 1483; MARRIED, FIRST, 1501; SECOND, 1509 J REPUDIATED, 
1533; DECEASED, 1536. 



The queen of earthly queens: — She is noble horn ; 

And, like her true nobility, she has 

Carried herself toward me. 

Shakspbajeb, K. Henry VIII. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Had one no other object in view, than to select a subject 
for declamation, illustrative of the vicissitudes of human af- 
fairs, the instability of human fortunes, the mutability, in one 
word, of everything terrestrial and mortal, contrasted with the 
sublime spectacle of a christian soul, while yet contained within 
the poor, perishable body, remaining constant, unaltered, and 
the same, through all changes of condition, all trials sorest to 
the heart, all calamities most difficult to endure serenely, up- 
held by the innate consciousness of worth, by a clear sense of 
the obligations imposed by noble birth, and, above all, by a 
secure faith and fervent piety, — I know not whither he should 
turn to seek one more consistently, than to the page, which con- 
tains the records of this most royal lady, her varied sorrows, 
but unvarying majesty and virtues. 

Were one to exhaust all history, all romance, to draw to 
the utmost on the dreams of unmixed imagination, in order to 



260 BIRTH OF KATHARINE. 

find something nobler in its origin, more blessed in its early 
promise, more prosperous and full of all good augury in the 
first years of life's voyage, more consistent with that promise 
and augury in its undisturbed and gorgeous noontide, than the 
career of this illustrious princess and great queen, from her 
cradle to her fortieth year, or even something later, he would 
exhaust history, exhaust fiction, bankrupt imagination, to no 
purpose. 

Were he to ransack all storehouses of sorrow, humiliation, 
and indignity, heaped on a virtuous and almost perfect woman's 
head, and borne with unswerving constancy and patience, with 
unruffled temper, with more than manly dignity, yet with the 
grace, the tenderness, the feminine affection of the most deli- 
cate and gentlest woman, he could find nothing to surpass, no- 
thing, in my thought, to equal, the examples shown in the lat- 
ter years of Katharine of Arragon. 

The youngest daughter of the two greatest monarchs of the 
most powerful, splendid, and civilized country, at that day, in 
all Europe, Ferdinand of Arragon, and Isabella of Castille, 
who won from the Saracen Apencerrages and Almohades the 
long lost patrimony of the Gothic kings, and first united the 
rich provinces of Spain within the compass of one gorgeous 
diadem, to whom Columbus, "the world-seeking Genoese," 
gave, while she was yet but a child, careless of royalty, new 
worlds across the western ocean, and the proud right to bear 
the vaunting words, "Pious oultre" — "Yet more beyond" 
the pillars of the Spanish Hercules and limits of the ancient 
world, — she was born amid the bray of trumpets, the splendor 
and the din of arms, and all the pageantry and pomp of Span- 
ish chivalry — and chivalry in those days was preeminently 
Spanish — while her admirable mother, one of the most charm- 



ENGLAND AND SPAIN. 261 

ing heroines of history, was waging war, as herself the inde- 
pendent queen of an independent nation, against the magnifi- 
cent Moors of Grenada. 

For many centuries, Spain and England had been bound 
by strict links of amity and alliance, as well as by connection 
of their blood royal. The arms of the English Plantagenets 
had given their aid to support the legitimate line of Castille 
against domestic treason, as against foreign warfare ; and two 
several princes of the blood of that indomitable race, Edmund 
of York, and John of Ghent, duke of Lancaster, had severally 
married ancestresses of this lady. So settled, indeed, had be- 
come the policy, and so near to the national heart was the sen- 
timent of friendship toward England, that we find it recorded 
in that most popular of all forms of record, in Spain more es- 
pecially, I mean the proverb, in which no other extant lan- 
guage is so rich as that of Cervantes. 

The existence of such a saying as this, alive in the mouths 
of a proud and homogeneous people, from a very remote an- 
tiquity — 

" Con todo el mundo guerra 
T paz con Inglaterra" — 

testifies to no suddenly-born or transient policy of cabinets 
or kings, but to a genuine and established national belief; nor 
was it, until dissensions arose, which perhaps had their origin 
in the wrongs of this very princess, which were exaggerated 
by religious struggles and persecutions, enduring through many 
generations, and deeply stirring the general heart of both 
countries, that the mutual disposition to a traditional and al- 
most hereditary amity, has passed away and become extinct, 
probably forever. 

It is worthy of remembrance, that Isabella of Castille, her- 



262 THE PERIOD OF HER BIRTH. 

self, the mother of Katharine, had been betrothed in her early 
youth to Edward IV., grandfather of Henry VIII., and had 
been slighted and discarded by that licentious monarch, incon- 
sequence of his suddenly-conceived passion for the beautiful 
Elizabeth Woodville, which he could by no means gratify, 
save on conditions of honorable matrimony. 

Of this wise and heroical queen, Katharine was the young- 
est child, by her politic and prudent consort, Ferdinand V. of 
Arragon ; who — after the death of his wife and her daughters, 
Isabella and Joanna, the former without issue by her husbands, 
Alphonso and Manuel of Portugal, the latter leaving an infant, 
afterward the famous emperor, Charles V., whom she bore to 
Philip, son of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy — succeeded 
to the administration of the kingdom of Castille, by right 
of guardianship to his grandson, as heir male of Isabella's 
royalty. 

The monarchs of these two provinces, which they indeed 
united, and left one kingdom, to their successors, yet governed 
them severally and singly ; neither assuming to exercise sov- 
ereign rights in the realm of the other, but carrying on their 
governments, each by the ministers of each, and each com 
manding the armies of the kingdoms they represented, per- 
sonally or by national vicegerents. At the time of Katharine's 
birth, December 15, 1485, Isabella, with her famous clerical 
counsellor and captain, Cardinal Ximenes, was in the full pros- 
ecution of her long and difficult war against the unfortunate 
Boabdil, the last of the Saracen kings of Spain, and his heroic 
mother ; who did not ultimately succumb to the arms of the 
royal consorts, until in 1492, when the young princess, who was 
born in the city of Alcala de Henares, during one of the martial 
progresses of her royal mother, and much of whose early life 



LAST DAYS OF CHIVALRY. 263 

was passed in the besieging camp, on the banks of those deli 
cious rivers, the Xenil and Darro, watering the lovely vegas 
of Granada, and within view of the exquisite Alhambra, was 
in the ninth year of her age. 

What a world of romance must have passed, in splendid 
review, before the admiring eyes of that young Spanish girl, 
in those strange years, wherein expiring chivalry decked itself, 
like the dying dolphin, or the autumnal forest, in hues of which 
its lusty prime had been unconscious ; wherein the practical 
and real world, in which we live and have our being, had al- 
ready begun to encroach upon that ideal and imaginative world, 
which was as tangible to our ancestors, as theirs seems strange 
to us, and ours would seem to them, could they be brought 
to comprehend it. 

The last soirit of the crusades was still blazing bright, on 
the fertile valleys of Granada ; gonfanons and panoplies of 
burnished mail, surcoats of knightly arms, turbans and orien- 
tal draperies were still flashing and floating, under the azure 
skies of Spain, through the deep passes of the Alpuxarras ; 
" the gentle river" was still running red with mingled streams 
of infidel and christian gore, and the Atabals, the Cymbals, 
and the Lelilies of the Moslemin were ringing among the 
trumpets and the war-cries of St. Jago, while the caravels 
were fitting in the port of Palos, which were to open to the 
old world the knowledge of the new, and to bring about 
changes yet stranger and more potent in the manners and 
morals of men, and in the destinies of nations, than in the re- 
gions of science, and the extent of the known universe. 

While this interminable domestic war was in process — 
which resulted in the expulsion of the Moorish race from their 
last stronghold on European soil, and which, much as it has 



264 COLUMBUS IN THE CAMP. 

been accused for impolicy by historians who have not hesita- 
ted to ascribe to it, as one of the prime causes, the ensuing de- 
cline and ultimate, decadency of the Peninsula, was clearly ne- 
cessary to Spain, as a homogeneous nationality and govern- 
ment — unweariedly did the enthusiastic and indomitable nav- 
igator petition the queen, who, it would seem, from the begin- 
ning appreciated his daring intellect, his untiring perseverance, 
and the far-reaching vision of his instructed mind, but in truth 
lacked the means to forward him ; for the scanty aid, which 
he promised would suffice him to give a new world to Castille 
and Leon, was not attainable during the continuance of that 
exhausting struggle. 

A superabundance of absurdity has been written, and high- 
sounding indignation wasted, on the narrow-mindedness and 
malice- heaven save the mark !— of those, who failed immedi- 
ately to fall in with the views and to appreciate the arguments 
of Columbus, which naturally appeared to them visionary in 
the extreme ; which were contrary to all experience, to all 
the knowledge of past ages, and, as by many it was constantly 
asserted, to the principles of the christian religion. The same 
opposition has been offered, under nearly the same forms, 
though without ascription by the writers of the day to either 
envy, hatred, malice, or any other kind of uncharitableness, to 
every great and marvellous discovery of modern days ; to illu- 
mination of the world by gas ; to the navigation of the ocean 
by steam ; to the transmission of intelligence by magnetism ; 
to every new truth of science ; and there are, at this moment, 
in which I write, hundreds of Lutheran, Calvinist, Methodist, 
Baptist divines, who are neither envious nor malicious, nor, in 
other matters, ignorant, who condemn the geological discov- 
eries of Buckland, Lyell, Cuvier, and Agassiz, as impious and 



SCHEMES OF COLUMBUS. 265 

contrary to revealed religion, with equal intolerance to that 
displayed by Romish inquisitors toward the world-seeking 
navigator, and for the very same cause; that, in both cases, the 
teachings of the philosopher are at variance with what the the- 
ologist conceives to be the only true interpretation, because it 
is his own interpretation, of some obscure passage in the Old 
Testament, at the meaning of which he only arrives, at all, 
through the medium of a translation from a dead language into 
a foreign tongue. 

It is ascertained, at this day, beyond a peradventure, that 
Columbus had not merely surmised, as a deduction from 
given data, the existence of a new, transatlantic world ; but 
that he knew it, as a fact, from the perusal of the journals and 
inspection of the charts of the Norse prediscoverers, which he 
had certainly seen in the royal library of Iceland— where they 
are preserved to this time-during a visit, which he is known 
to have made to that island. It is even doubtful, whether he 
had conceived any idea of reaching the western shores of India, 
for such to the end he believed the newly discovered lands to 
be, by means of circumnavigation, until after he had become 
acquainted with the success, which the Norse rovers had en- 
countered, on a western course; although — granted the world's 
rotundity — to perceive the feasibility of such a plan would 
seem to argue no preternatural acumen, though to carry it 
out, to accomplishment, might demand almost superhuman 
fortitude, energy, perseverance, and the immutable will of a 
very hero. 

As Columbus did not choose to reveal the positive knowl- 
edge, he had acquired, of the possibility of reaching a vast 
western land, far beyond farthest Thyle, by steering out into 
the seemingly illimitable ocean, but persisted in resting his 



266 PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY. 

convictions, only on vague speculations, and on reasonings, 
which will not bear the test of reason, as to the necessity of 
an existing continent in the west, in order to counterbalance 
the preponderance of land in the eastern hemisphere, and so 
to preserve the equilibrium of the globe, it appears to me far 
more astonishing that he did ultimately, than that he did not 
earlier, persuade any potentate of that day to adopt his theo- 
ries, to such an extent as to furnish ships, mariners, and money, 
and that when each of the three was worth many multiples 
of its present value, for the prosecution of a plan of dis- 
covery so wild, and with a prospect of remuneration so re- 
mote and slender. 

It does not, moreover, appear to me — although the solid 
sanction of the universities, always the most slowly moving, 
and most difficult to be convinced, of bodies, although the au- 
thority of the ponderous doctors of Salamanca and the fanati- 
cal fathers of the order of Jesus could not be readily won over 
to the new theories — -that, one of the shrewd, practical, politic 
princes, men of the world, and statesmen, to whom he ap- 
plied, ever entertained any strong doubt of the truth of the 
chart-maker's speculations ; but that they did, all, shrewdly 
doubt the profitable character of the proposed enterprise, and 
the policy of their embarking suddenly in so extraordinary an 
adventure, is as certain, as it was natural and wise in them to 
do so. 

John II. of Portugal, who, by the discovery of the passage 
by the Cape of Good Hope to the eastern Indies, of which he 
was even then in pursuit, shortly afterward seized the initia- 
tive and hoped to acquire a monopoly, in the trade of spice, 
of precious gems and gold, from the rich regions of the Ori- 
ent, needed not, nor had the desire, to open a fresh channel, 



HENRY VII. 267 

•whether to the same or to some other mart of tropical wealth, 
when to do so would but create a rivalry, to the detriment of 
his own subject. 

Henry VII. of England, the sagest, most prudent, most par- 
simonious, and, withal, most grasping monarch of his day, 
though he governed a people, who had hitherto displayed little 
genius for maritime, and scarcely more for commercial, enter- 
prise, yet seriously inclined his ear to the enthusiastic elo- 
quence of the Genoese mariner. He became, but a few years 
later, the ardent patron and promoter of transatlantic discov- 
ery, and it was under his auspices, if not at his charges, that 
the Cabots, a year at least before Columbus saw the mainland 
of America, discovered New Foundland and the coasts of the 
northern British provinces, thus being the first to attract the 
English mind to that career of north-western enterprise, from 
which it has never since been diverted ; at this time, however, 
he was too vitally occupied in securing the crown, he had oe. 
cupied, to a dynasty of his own creation, and in subduing do- 
mestic insurrection aided by foreign influence, to be enabled 
to spare either time or moneys on an adventure, which, how 
magnificent soever, afforded little present prospect either of 
profit or of power, which were necessary alike to his ambition 
and to the safety of his line. 

The causes for delay, on the part of Isabella, are so evident, 
while an internecine war was raging on the frontier of her own 
dominions, with a race, which must be extirpated or expelled — 
since it never could be rendered subordinate to Spanish or 
christian rule — if Spain was ever to be made one kingdom, in- 
cluded by its natural boundaries, that it is only wonderful to 
me, how she ever was induced and enabled to furnish forth the 



268 FALSE STYLE OF MEMOIR WRITING. 

means, scanty as they were, with which Columbus proceeded 
on his voyage of discovery. 

After eight years, however, of incessant solicitation, ,the 
good queen was able to do what she had earnestly desired to do, 
years before ; and, on the third of August, 1492, the world- 
finder set sail, with three small vessels, from the port of Palos, 
in Seville, the year following the final conquest of Granada, 
and the incorporation of the whole territory, between the Py- 
renees, the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic ocean, and the Mediter- 
ranean sea, the small kingdom of Portugal on the western 
shore alone excepted, into one state, which soon became from 
a third rate, a first rate power among the nations. 

I am not about to fall into an error, common to many bril- 
liant and speculative writers ; that of assuming the probabil- 
ity, because she was in being at the time, that the child Kath- 
arine had any agency whatever in any of the great movements, 
which were going on around her ; much less of imagining that 
her childish fancy might have been touched by the eloquence 
and sublime aspect of the pilgrim navigator, or that her child- 
ish endearments might have had their effect in bringing her 
mother to grant the mariner's supplication. Such, however, is 
too much, and too often, the mode of writing history, adopted 
by the memoir compilers of to-day, who, writing often to gain 
the mere popularity of the minute, for the most part think it 
needful to take a popular view of the subject ; and, true or un- 
true, possible or impossible, are ever on the qui vive to pro- 
duce something in favor of the hero, or heroine — of whom they 
almost invariably constitute themselves mere partizan defend- 
ers — which no one ever heard of, or suspected, before. To such 
an extent, is this mischievous and foolish partizanship some- 
times carried, that it leads the writers into the defence of all 



IMPRESSIONS OF HER CHILDHOOD. 269 

sorts of crimes and enormities, and deprives their works of 
any claim to authenticity; and so flagrant does this sometimes 
become, as to be in the end ludicrous, as well as provoking ; 
as, for instance, where Miss Strickland, in her laborious and, 
in other respects, valuable lives of the queens of England, takes 
every sovereign in succession, so soon as she begins to deal 
with her as a sovereign, under her immediate and especial pro- 
tection, often totally reversing the verdict she has rendered, a 
few pages above, in considering her relations toward her pred- 
ecessor, while herself a private personage. 

I do mean, however, to show that the mind of an intelligent 
girl of ten years, having such scenes constantly passing before 
her eyes, such conversations continually held within her hear- 
ing, brought up and educated, as we know Katharine to have 
been, by such a mother, so affectionate, so pious, so prudent, 
as we see Isabella to have been, must have taken a deep color- 
ing from the vastness of the events, of which she was herself 
a witness and in some degree a part. Her favorite device of 
the pomegranate, which she bore, throughout her life, in a 
sterner and bleaker clime, and in darker days, than those 
which left their imprint on her childhood, speaks strongly of 
the impression made upon her by the orange groves and myr- 
tle gardens, the silvery waters and the umbrageous woodlands 
of the beautiful Granada. Doubtless, she saw the rearguard 
of the Moorish squadrons defiling through the steep streets of 
the Saracenic city, while weak Boabdil wept, and his man- 
hearted mother chid the tears, which bewailed an empire his 
hand had lacked the power to defend. Doubtless, she mar- 
velled in her girlish wonder at the rare, the inimitable splen- 
dors of the exquisite Alhambra, and as she tasted the diamond 
waters that sparkled from the fount of lions, and murmured 



270 KATHARINE IN HER NATIVE LAND. 

with a cooling freshness through the hall of kings, felt, min- 
gling with triumphant admiration, some touch of sympathy 
for those, though of a hostile race and hated creed, whom she 
had seen expelled forever, by her mother's arms, from that, 
their earthly paradise. Doubtless, she had heard all the pitiful, 
all the marvellous tales of the wild mariner, whom men 
deemed mad, while he was wandering on foot, begging a cup 
of water for his fainting fellow-journeyer, from cottage door to 
convent gate, yet promising, while he lacked bread for his own 
need, the wealth of undiscovered realms to the mightiest of 
monarchs — had heard of him, when his eloquence convinced 
councillors and cardinals, and won Ferdinand and Isabella to 
speed him on his marvellous adventure — had heard of him, 
when he sailed, tempting the terrors of the mighty deep, in 
those three slender barques, scarce equal to the long-boats of 
a modern three-decker. Doubtless, she heard the shouts and 
reverberated peals of ordnance, as they hailed the return, no 
longer of the mad adventurer, but of the world-discoverer, of 
the lord admiral of the ocean sea, of the governor of that New 
Spain in the farthest west, the conquest of which was to ren- 
der, before her own eyes should be closed in the welcome 
slumbers of the grave, her native land, the Old Spain, which 
she was so soon to leave forever, the wealthiest, the mightiest, 
the most puissant of all European kingdoms; and her own, yet 
unborn, nephew, Charles, the stateliest and most powerful of 
earthly monarchs. 

She lived to see, even before she left the sunny shores of 
her beloved Spain for that northern isle, the hospitality of 
which she was destined to find as cold to her as the rigor 
of its northern winters, the first influx of that entering tide 
of gold, which, while it filled the treasuries with stores that ap- 



UNPRECEDENTED GROWTH OP SPAIN. 271 

peared inexhaustible, corrupted the life-blood of the land, sap- 
ped the stern virtues of its haughty aristocracy, and, in the 
end, undermined all its foundations, and left it the baseless and 
downfallen ruin, which we gaze on, with less of pity than con- 
tempt, in the nineteenth century. 

This she saw not, however, nor could in anywise foresee, un- 
less it had been by aid of actual inspiration. It was the glori- 
ous and majestic aspect of a rising, not a falling, empire, that 
filled her youthful soul with visions of majesty, and fed her as- 
pirations to the height of human dignity. Not so rapid is 
even the vaunted growth of the United States, from the imbe- 
cillity of childhood to the colossal might of immature man- 
hood, as were the strides by which Spain burst, within a life- 
time, from being a disjointed region of secondary, uncon- 
nected kingdoms, to be greatest, wealthiest, strongest, empire, 
since Eome's Caesars fixed the imperial eagles high above the 
Palatine. 

The union of Castille and Leon with Arragon and Catalonia, 
the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada, the acquisi- 
tion of auriferous America, mainland and island, came, one and 
all, fast following consequences, from the auspicious marriage 
of Ferdinand and Isabella. From that of their daughter Jo- 
anna with Philip, heir of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, 
the whole of the rich Netherlands, and of that splendid duchy, 
comprising nearly a third part of what is now the empire of 
the French, was added to Spain in the succession of their son 
Charles, the first king of the Austrian house, to that throne, on 
the demise of his grandfather, Ferdinand. 

Born of such parents, sprung from such a land, exhibiting 
from an early age the talents which she inherited from her 
mother, with all that mother's dignity, and piety, and pru- 



272 CHARACTER OF KATHARINE. 

dence, but without her coldness, her austerity, her fanaticism, 
or her fierce zeal, leading her even to the length of persecution, 
gloriously endowed with the dark-glowing, stately, superb 
beauty of her native land, who should predict for any one of 
earthly mould a happier or grander future than for young 
Catalina — for so she was christened, although the history of 
the land, in which it was hers to live and die, has Anglicized 
her into Katharine — the beautiful infanta of her paternal Arra- 
gon ? Nor was the marriage of this highly favored princess 
less promising of happiness than was her birth august, and the 
circumstances of her early youth auspicious. 

Henry VII., the usurping pretender of the house of Lancas- 
ter, who, with less claims of blood than any monarch, who ever 
ascended that splendid throne, having obtained possession of 
the crown of England, vacant by the death of Richard, that 
tyrant, veritably " bloody-sceptered," and secured it by his mar- 
riage with Elizabeth, the beautiful "Pale Rose of York," and 
heiress of that house and its rightful claim to the monarchy, sat 
in the place of his unjust dominion, more firmly, perhaps, than 
any king in Europe; assuredly wielded his sceptre more des- 
potically, as less checked by the arrogant feudal nobility, 
which, in other kingdoms, as in past years they had done in 
England, before they were decimated, and their strength was 
well nigh broken, in the bloody wars of the Roses, still divi 
ded the power with the monarch, and prevented the absorp- 
tion of the whole puissance of the state by the crown. It is a 
strange trait of character, that this cold, hard-hearted, selfish, 
practical, iron-minded man, whom of all others one would the 
least have suspected of anything like imaginative, nruch less 
poetical, tendencies, was yet a dreamer, a believer and enthu- 
siastic student in the old legendary lore of that wild and mystic 



PRINCE ARTHUR OF WALES. 273 

land of Wales, and that yet wilder reign of Cymric Brittany, 
with its vast stormy heaths, its bardic monuments, its crom- 
lechs, its monoliths, its huge stone avenues and circles, its Car- 
nak, vaster than Stonehenge, its identical superstitions, and al- 
most identical language. 

Himself of the Welsh blood of the Tudors, on the father's 
side, he had resided much among the mountains of North 
Wales; he had landed in that country, at Milford Haven, when 
he came in his chivalrous and daring enterprise against the 
bloody Kichard, and he constantly sought to identify himself 
with the people, loyal, brave, and devoted to their hereditary 
chiefs, of that ancient principality, in which he numbered many 
of his most resolute adherents. His eldest son, the Prince of 
Wales, born at Winchester, while the king, his father, was 
hunting in the New Forest, on the 20th of September, I486, 
was named Arthur, after the great king of the Cymri,whom 
many of his people believed, then, and perhaps still believe t<? 
this very day, to survive, though plunged in a magic stupor, 
In the enchanted shades of Ynys Avallon, the undiscernabk 
bardic sanctuary and admeasured centre of the island. 

To this young prince, who was handsome of person, excel- 
lent of disposition, and eminently learned, was the princess be- 
trothed, while she was yet but a child, sporting among the ex- 
quisite scenery of the Alhambra, and in the fairy halls of the 
Generalifie, wherein her youth was spent, happily and grace- 
fully, amid the dolce fa?- niente of that soft, southern climate 
of Granada, which her mother made her constant abode, no 
less than the seat of her royalty, after the expulsion — from its 
Saracenic domes and oriental minarets, its thickets of figs and 
jessamine and orange and pomegranate, its towering palms, 
L* 18 



274 KATHARINE EMBARKS FOR ENGLAND. 

its shadowy cork-woods, and the blue lapse of its vocal waters — 
of its unfortunate Moorish lords. 

At the age of four, we first find Catalina present at the mar- 
riage of her elder sister, Isabel, with Don Juan* or, as he is 
otherwise termed, Don Alphonso, the heir of Portugal. It is 
remarkable, in reference to the question which subsequently 
arose with regard to Katharine's marriage with Henry, that, 
after the death of Alphonso, Isabel was wedded to Manuel, 
king of Portugal, who was within the prohibited degrees with 
her first husband, and that after Isabel's decease, her third sis- 
ter, Mary, became the wife of the same Manuel, her sister's 
widower, so little, at that time, seems to have been the objec- 
tion made to marriages with the relicts of deceased brothers 
and sisters. Joanna, the second sister, was married to Philip 
of Burgundy, son of Maximilian, and bore to him Charles, af- 
terward the magnificent rival of Francis and Henry. 

So soon as Arthur completed his fifteenth year, Katharine 
being just one year older than her youthful bridegroom, the 
marriage, which had been definitely arranged in 1496, and 
celebrated by proxy in the chapel of the prince's manor-house 
at Bewdly, the Spanish ambassador standing proxy for the in- 
fanta, was brought to pass in earnest. 

On the seventeenth day of August, 1501, the princess em- 
barked at Corunna, but-as if the winds and waves themselves, 
things inanimate, and lying under the ban of poetry, as above 
all else deaf and pitiless to humanity, were opposed to her de- 
parture for that misty and inclement isle, wherein her future 
fates were to be as cold and ungenial as the climate, — a fierce 
storm, during which she suffered from sea sickness grievously, 

♦ Miss Strickland calls Mm "Don Juan, the heir of Portugal." Lord Herbert of 
Therbury — "Alphonso, prince of Portugal." 



SPANISH ETIQUETTE. 275 

drove her back upon the coasts of old Castille ; but a second 
attempt, on the twenty-sixth of the following month, was more 
successful ; and, on the second of October, she landed at 
Plymouth, where she was received with much pomp and 
splendor — all the population of the country flocking in to do 
her honor, and entertaining her with west-country sports and 
rural pastimes — by the Lord Brook, steward of the royal pal- 
ace, the Duchess of Norfolk, and the Earl of Surrey, who were 
especially deputed to wait upon her. 

The royal progress was so slow as to savor more of Spanish 
etiquette, than of the frankness which is attributed to English 
hospitality. The roads were execrable ; the weather was such 
as may be understood by those who know what is English 
weather in November, the bleakest, saddest, stormiest month 
of the year ; the processions of the princess, inland, and of her 
royal bridegroom, seaward, were made on horseback, and it 
would seem that they never exceeded a foot's pace ; for it ap- 
pears to have been the third or fourth day after Katharine's 
departure from Plymouth, before the royal parties met on the 
open downs, in the midst of a wild and pelting storm, not far 
from the town of Dogmersfield, where some circumstances oc- 
curred sufficiently curious to be worthy of remark. At this 
period, Spanish etiquette, always rigid and formal in the ex- 
treme, had caught, from long habitude to Moorish customs 
and ideas, an ultraism, in regard to the fair sex, amounting al- 
most to the oriental usages of female sequestration ; and it 
seems that the high Spanish dignitaries, to whose care the in- 
fanta was committed, had received . positive regulations as to 
her intercourse, previous to marriage, even with her father-in- 
law and husband, that were to be, which, like the laws of the 



276 THE COUNCIL ON THE HAMPSHIRE DOWNS. 

Medes and Persians, were to be immutable under whatever 
mutation of circumstances. 

Under no possible contingency, was the young infanta to be 
looked upon by the profane eyes of a male animal, until she 
should stand before the altar ; when, and when only, her veil 
was to be raised, and the charms of the bride exhibited to the 
bridegroom, which he was not so much as to behold, until the 
indissoluble knot should be tied. 

Henry VII. was himself a man of forms and ceremonials, 
cold, hard, close-handed, and close-hearted ; but, whether, as 
Miss Strickland has it, his curiosity was thoroughly aroused 
by the prohibition, or, as I presume, he did not choose to re- 
ceive dictation in his own country, he would not hear of the 
restriction. A council was called, on the bleak Hampshire 
downs — one would like to have seen that council, at nightfall, 
in the gray, ghostly mist of a November evening, amid the 
pelting rain, and the cutting breath of the cold north-easter, 
without so much as a tree or a hedgerow to shield them from 
the bitter rain storm — the starched, grim-visaged, whiskered, 
Spanish grandees, wrapped in their long capas, with their som- 
breros slouched over their brows, shivering on the backs of 
their Andalusian coursers, yet holding out in high debate 
against the mere idea of such a breach of all Iberian proprieties, 
as the suffering a Spanish maiden to be shown unveiled to the 
eyes of her nearest future relatives ; while Henry, in his blunt 
English fashion, backed by the opinion of his sturdy lords, 
who were probably cursing the stilted nonsense of the dons, 
from the depths of their Saxon souls, as they thought of the 
barons of beef, the haunches of venison, and the giggots of 
mutton, which were growing cold in the lodging, prepared for 
the royal cavalcade, at Dogmersfield, insisted that since " the 



henry's bluntness. 277 

Spanish infanta was now in the heart of the realm, of which 
King Henry was master, he might look at her if he liked." 
And, as it seems, that emphatically "he did like ; " so it was 
decided ; and, accordingly, leaving his son in the storm on the 
downs, he rode on to Dogmersfield, whither the princess and 
her ladies had very sensibly got themselves out of the rain, 
some three hours, or so, before. But, even so, the matter 
was not to end ; for a Spanish count, an archbishop, and a 
bishop opposed the king's entrance to the apartments of his 
fair daughter-in-law, saying that " the lady infanta had retired 
to her chamber." 

But Henry VII., cold, as he was selfish and hard of heart, 
had too much British blood — none the coolest when once fairly 
aroused, at bottom — to brook the Spanish formulas ; nor was 
the man, who had met the bloody boar of York, front to front, 
at Bosworth, precisely the person to be turned from his pur- 
pose by a Spanish count, even if he were supported by an arch- 
bishop and a bishop, as his assessors. So he swore a lusty 
oath, that, " if she were even in her bed, he meant to see and 
speak to her, for that was his mind, and the whole intent of 
his coming." Wherefore, seeing that he was a man some- 
what apt to have the whole intents of his mind satisfied, the 
infanta, who really had gone to bed, being, probably, tho- 
roughly tired and drenched to the skin, had no choice for it, 
out to get up again, dress herself, and receive the visit of her 
father-in-law in futuro. He, being well pleased with her ap- 
pearance, sent for his son to come in out of the rain, retired to 
change his own wet riding suit, and then proceeded to intro- 
duce the prince to the bride elect. Thereafter, they parted, 
after pledging their troth in person, the king going with his son 
and his hungry lords to the long desired supper, and the prin- 



278 Katharine's first marriage. 

cess not, as one would have expected, going back again to bed ; 
for, we find that after the jolly evening meal was over, at 
which one can well imagine how the stout English peers laughed 
and roared among their cups, over the discomfiture of the 
pompous dons, she received her betrothed lover and his father 
in her own apartments, " when she and her ladies called for 
their minstrels, and with right goodly behavior and manner so- 
laced themselves with dancing." The prince, it seems, whether 
that he did not understand the Spanish dances, or that it was 
contrary to the rules of etiquette, did not mingle with his lady 
love and her damsels in the dance, but, when his tu n came, 
"in like demeanor took the Lady Guilford," governess to his 
sister Mary, afterward Queen of France and Duchess of Suf- 
folk, " and danced right pleasantly and honorably." 

On the following day, Katharine arrived at Chertsey, where 
she was lodged hi the royal palace at that place ; thence, on the 
eighth of November, she came to Kingston on Thames, where 
she was met by the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Kent, 
and the Abbot of Bury, who, on the next morning, escorted 
her with a splendid train to her own lodging, in Kennington 
palace, close to Lambeth, which had been duly prepared for 
her reception. 

On the twelfth of November, being the day of Saint Kath- 
arine, her patroness, chosen as such in her honor, she made her 
solemn entrance by London bridge, whence she was conducted 
in great pomp to St. Paul's, the streets crowded with people 
in holiday garbs, the conduits running all day long with Gas- 
con wine, instead of water, and the nobility vieing with each 
other in the lavish expense of bravery and decoration, whereby 
to testify their sense of the occasion. On that night, as on that, 
also, which followed the wedding, she was lodged in the palace 



HER MARRIED LIFE AT LUDLOW. 279 

of the Bishop of London, adjoining the cathedral, in which the 
ceremonial was performed, on the feast of St. Erkenwald, being 
November 14, 1501, by which she became Princess of Wales, 
and wife to the heir apparent of the British throne. 

The young Duke of York, afterward Henry VIII. and her 
second husband, conducted her to the altar, himself attired, as 
was the bridegroom, his brother, in white satin ; the princess 
Cecily bore her train, attended by a hundred ladies of rank ; 
the service was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
assisted by nineteen bishops and mitred abbots ; and the king, 
the queen, Elizabeth of York, and the king's mother, the ven- 
erable Countess of Richmond, witnessed the proceedings from 
a latticed box, which had been prepared for their reception, 
near to an elevated stage, or mount, as it is called, in the cen- 
tre of the church, whereon the principal persons stood, during 
the celebration of the nuptials. After the wedding, the prince 
and princess were sumptuously feasted in the episcopal palace. 
in St. Paul's church-yard ; and were there bedded, according to 
the ceremonial and usage of the day, the bed being solemnly 
blessed, in the presence of a multitude of noble lords and la- 
dies, who were called upon many years afterward to testify to 
what they had seen on that night, in regard to the cohabita- 
tion of the parties as man and wife. 

And it is well here to state, in a word, that it was proved 
on oath, by the old Duchess of Norfolk, the Lord and Lady 
Fitzwater, and other witnesses, who had ample means of know- 
ing the fact, that the young couple slept together on the night 
of their marriage, at the bishop's palace, and for five or six 
nights subsequently ; and that, for five months, thereafter, both 
in London, and at Ludlow, where, as the capital of their prin- 
cipality of Wales, they held a miniature court, modelled after 



280 THE MARRIAGE CONTROVERSY. 

that of Westminster, they lived in all respects, as man and 
wife. At this time, Arthur was in good health, and is de- 
scribed as a gentleman of good and sanguine complexion, above 
fifteen years of age, while Katharine was a year his senior. 
Some indelicate remarks of the prince, suited to the rudeness 
of the time, are quoted, as tending to prove the consumma- 
tion of the marriage ; but Katharine, both previous to her sec- 
ond marriage, and at the period of her repudiation, swore that 
she came to Henry's bed a pure virgin, as indeed she persisted 
to the last; and, on the former occasion, offered to submit to 
the examination of a board of matrons. The whole affair is 
mysterious, and difficult of ascertainment ; yet, in view of 
Katharine's unblemished and unquestionable character for pi- 
ety, morality, integrity, honor and worth, we cannot, I think, 
err in placing full confidence in the veracity of her statements 
— the rather that she does not by any means appear to have 
been solicitous to marry, the second time, with Henry, who 
was five or six years her junior — and in taking it to be a fact, 
however we may explain it, that her marriage with Arthur 
never had consummation. It is not my intention to fill whole 
pages with descriptions of the childish and endless pageants, 
allegories and masks, which are one of the features of this pe- 
riod, and which must hfcve been, one might judge, from the te- 
diousness of the narrative, mortally wearisome, both to the 
spectators and performers. They are curious, certainly, in an 
antiquarian point of view, and as throwing some light on the 
social life and amusements of our ancestors, which seem to have 
been as ponderous as their diet ; and that was no light matter 
in days, when the fairest and most delicate of ladies broke their 
morning fast on chines of beef, kits of salted herrings, with a 
proper seasoning of kilderkins of mustard, and washed the 



SILENCE OE HISTORY IN TIMES OF PEACE. 281 

solids down with gallons of October. Those who are curious 
about such details, will find them spread out over the solid 
tomes of Holingshede and Hall, and quoted largely in Miss 
Strickland's lives, as if to make up for the want of what we 
most desire to know, and what she could not give us, from the 
lack of existing information, something of the inner and more 
domestic life of the princes, as well as of the people of that 
day. 

The truth is this ° that where the lives of individuals, and the 
courses of nations, run tranquilly, peacefully and happily, the 
memoirs of those and the histories of these have little to re- 
late, and that little is related in a few brief sentences. A cen- 
tury of undisturbed and peaceful national advancement, is fully 
narrated in two or three generalizing paragraphs — a single year 
of warfare, of conspiracy, of pestilence, of conquest in a peo- 
ple's career — of crime, intrigue, misery and ruin in a man's 
story, shall require pages, and exhaust eloquence, in proportion 
as it will excite interest and enchain sympathy. The deepest, 
and grandest and most fertilizing river, where it dispenses 
wealth by the lapse of its waters, and bears the welfare of na- 
tions on its bosom, rolls on in silence without a murmur that 
should denote its existence at a mile's distance. The paltriest 
of brooks, where it is tortured into agony, or lashed into fury, 
shall roar you, that its echoes will be heard over leagues of 
space. 

We know, therefore, that, before he would consent that his 
gentle daughter should wed with the heir of England, Ferdinand 
insisted that the blood of the innocent young Earl of Warwick, 
unhappy son of the murdered Clarence, and last heir male of 
the direct line of the Plantagenets of York, should flow on tha 
scaffold, lest he should one day dispute Arthur's claim to the 



282 KATHARINE, DOWAGER OF WALES. 

throne ; but of the life of that young and interesting couple, 
during the brief five months, in which they played Prince and 
Princess of Wales, in their miniature court of Ludlow, we 
know nothing. History is silent, and tradition has not left a 
whisper ; but the absence of all rumor is conclusive, as is the 
regret and the long and exemplary widowhood of the charming 
Katharine, that they were, as they deserved to be, happy, be- 
loved of one another, and honored by their people. 

Katharine had brought a royal dower of two hundred thou- 
sand crowns to England, on her marriage, half of which sum 
had been paid down in gold, on the celebration of her nuptials. 
As Princess of Wales, she received in dower Wallingford 
castle, Cheylesmore, near Coventry, the city of Coventry, the 
castles of Conway and Caernarvon, a third part of the stanna- 
ries in Cornwall, and the city and town lands of Macclesfield ; 
and now, on the death of her young husband by the plague, 
which occurred amid the general lamentations of the people, 
within six months after his marriage, she was allowed, in lieu 
of the rents and rights of these manors and cities, the sum of 
five thousand pounds, annually, equal, in all respects, to at least 
ten times that sum in the present day, as her appanage, as 
princess dowager of Wales. 

It would seem strange, were it not too common of occur- 
rence to excite wonder, that, out of what would seem the abun 
dance" of her advantages, and the greatness of her position, 
came her worst sorrows. Which was the craftier and more 
cold-blooded schemer, which the more grasping and avaricious 
man, which the more ambitious, politic and wily statesman, 
her father-in-law, or her own father, it were difficult to say. But, 
no sooner was her young and beloved husband dead, than she 



KATHARINE BETROTHED TO HENRY. 283 

herself, and her possessions, began to be a subject of anxiety, 
which should profit by her, of the two royal intriguers. 

It was the game of Ferdinand to avoid paying the second 
hundred thousand crowns of the infanta's dowry ; and to re- 
cover the hundred thousand which he had already advanced ; 
he, therefore, as loudly reclaimed his " daughter and his du- 
cats," as though he had been a very Shylock, not the most 
Catholic king of christian Spain. 

Henry, on the contrary, had no notion of refunding the first 
instalment, but " had made it his mind and the whole of his in- 
tent," to get the second instalment, also ; and farther, he had 
resolved that Katharine's appanage should be spent, so long as 
she should draw it, in England, and to England's profit, and 
that she should not carry it abroad or disburse it in Spain. 

Hereupon, it was proposed by Henry, and, after some de- 
mur, agreed to by the parents of Katharine, that a dispensation 
should be obtained from the pope, and that she should be in due 
season married to Henry, duke of York, who, having been ed- 
ucated for the church, had now become heir, and afterward suc- 
ceeded to the throne, on the demise of his father, as Henry 
VIII. This prince, it will be remembered, was born on the 
twenty-eighth of June, 1491, and was now in his twelfth year 
only ; while the infanta was a magnificent young woman, of 
eighteen, in the full flush of mature, Spanish adolescence. It 
is not to be wondered, therefore, that this lady, in the flower 
of young womanhood, should have been averse to a marriage 
with a mere boy ; and that she should have written to her 
father, earnestly deprecating the proposed alliance, though pro- 
fessing, at the same time, perfect obedience to his wishes. That 
father was a mere cold-blooded politician, and the daughter's 
happiness was, of course, unhesitatingly sacrificed on the altar 



284 THE BULL AND BREVE OT DISPENSATION. 

of state expediency. A dispensation was readily obtained 
from the reigning pontiff, Julius II., and the ceremony of be- 
trothal was performed on the twenty-fifth of June, 1503, in 
the house of the Bishop of Salisbury, in Fleet street. 

It is very worthy of remark, that Isabella of Castille, who 
was at this moment on her death-bed, was deeply troubled in her 
mind with forebodings as to the result of this marriage, though 
on what grounds it cannot readily be conjectured ; and that 
she procured a copy of the breve of dispensation to be trans- 
mitted to her in Spain, which she afterward conveyed into Kath- 
arine's possession, who carefully preserved, and afterward pro- 
duced it, in support of the validity of her marriage. 

By Miss Strickland this alarm on the part of Isabella is re- 
garded, it would appear, as an indication of doubt as to the 
lawfulness of the marriage, on any terms ; while Miss Benger, 
in her life of Anne Boleyn, speaks strangely of the inconsist- 
ency of Henry and Anne in resting their opposition to the le- 
gality of the marriage, on the alleged invalidity of the bull of 
dispensation, which she terms a mere quibble, rather than on the 
inherent unlawfulness and vice of such an alliance. Both these 
ladies forget, I apprehend-the former in marvelling that Kath- 
arine, among her objections to the proposed marriage, should 
not have spoken of it as repugnant to the laws of God and 
man, rather than as merely repugnant to her own feelings; 
and the latter, in viewing the question of the dispensation as a 
mere quibble — two most important considerations, 

First, that neither Isabella nor Katharine could have regarded 
such a union as utterly repugnant to the laws of God or man, 
since such unions were of common occurrence in Spain and 
Portugal, two of Katharine's own sisters having been success- 
ively wives to the same man, without a pretence of denying 



GENERAL FAITH IN THE VIRTUE OF DISPENSATIONS. 285 

cohabitation or consummation ; and since dispensation was re- 
quired in such cases, only, as it was in case of the union of 
cousins, of persons pre-contracted but never married, and in 
all other instances, where the parties were within the prohibi- 
ted degrees of consanguinity, and ! where the bar was merely 
formal and easily set aside. 

Secondly, that in those days, not one person, in ten thou- 
sand, doubted the right of the pope to grant dispensations, or 
the absolute virtue of the Papal dispensation, when granted, to 
legalize that which would otherwise have been illegal, and to 
obviate all objections to the commission of any deed, which 
would otherwise have been positively criminal, but was thus 
rendered innocent and irreproachable. 

The fears of Isabella cannot, therefore, have pointed to any 
such or similar scruples, but must be attributed to her knowl- 
edge of the tortuous dispositions both of her own husband, 
Ferdinand, and of Henry, of England, which led her to ap- 
prehend that political chicanery might cause interference with 
her fair child's prospect of married happiness, unless her mar- 
riage should be secured beyond a peradventure ; and this 
caused her too seek, by all means, to ensure its validity, and to 
satisfy herself of the authenticity and fullness of the instrument 
which sanctioned it. 

Her fears were shortly to be realized, by an occurrence, 
which doubtless led, in after days, to the inception of Henry's 
idea of procuring a divorce, though she lived not to see their 
confirmation ; for soon after the death of Isabella, Elizabeth, 
the fair Rose of York, Henry's virtuous and lovely consort, 
died ; and, within a few months of that event, Philip of Bur- 
gundy, son of Maximilian, on his voyage from the Nether- 
lands to Spain, was forced by stress of weather to land on the 



286 DID SHE LOVE HIM ? 

English coast, with his wife, Joanna, the elder sister of Katha 
rine. Henry, it appears, was struck with her beauty, and, her 
husband dying shortly afterward, conceived the idea of him- 
self marrying the fair widow, and so allying himself yet more 
closely with the powerful family of Spain. 

In all ages, the English mind has been especially averse to 
kindred marriages ; and it seems, that the contract of Katha- 
rine, as widow of one, to a second brother, had not been per- 
fectly acceptable to the people of the realm. At all events, 
Henry VII. was well assured that if, in addition to this mis- 
liked alliance, he should himself be united to another sister, of 
the successive wife of two of his own sons, the popular indig- 
nation would be excited to a dangerous pitch. Warham, the 
archbishop of Canterbury, one of the most trusty and wisest 
of his counsellors had, it was understood, already taken excep- 
tion to the marriage of Katharine with the Duke of York, and 
several of the cardinals were said to have protested against the 
bull of dispensation. He, therefore, compelled his son, on at- 
taining his fifteenth year, to protest against the contract of mar- 
riage with his brother's widow, with a view, undoubtedly, to the 
setting aside of that contract, in case of his own marriage with 
Joanna ; as that lady proved, however, to be hopelessly insane, 
the idea of the match passed away, and the protest itself, was 
concealed, as a state secret, until many years afterward, when 
it was produced, in order to give a color to the base schemes 
of the lover of Anne Boleyn. 

It is characteristic of Henry's recklessness and headstrong 
obstinacy, while he was at yet a mere boy, that, although he 
had, probably, thought little and cared less, up to this time, 
for the grave and stately Spanish maiden, who was, as we have 
seen, six years his senior, he now became, or imagined him- 



FEARS OF CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE. 287 

self to be, passionately enamored of her, and his father found 
it necessary to keep a watch over the young couple, and to 
debar their meeting, in order to prevent the possibility of their 
contracting a clandestine marriage. In what degree, there was 
real peril of this, it is not easy to judge ; whether it was, as 
Miss Strickland argues " it must have been, truly provoking 
to the princess to be treated, as if she wished to steal a mar- 
riage, which she had designated to her father as distasteful 
and unsuitable," or whether, in the time that had elapsed since 
the writing of that letter, her sentiments had not undergone a 
change, is, to say the least, doubtful. There is, it must be re- 
membered, infinitely a greater disparity between the girl of 
eighteen and the boy of twelve years, than between a young 
woman of twenty-one and a youth, unusually precocious of in- 
tellect, as he was beyond his age in stature, both as to height 
and development, of fifteen. It is scarce to be doubted, that 
Henry VIII., who had, at the early age of forty, become so 
bulky as to be difficult of locomotion, ponderous and un- 
wieldy, and who stood, when at his prime, six feet four inches 
in height, was already at fifteen a large, fully-formed man, 
looking many years in advance of his actual time of life. And 
it is possible that the heart of Katharine was not untouched 
by the manly graces, chivalrous deportment, fair person, and 
various accomplishments of her youthful lover, even as it is 
certain, that in after life she did, for her own misfortune, be- 
ing probably the only woman who ever did so, truly and sin- 
cerely love him. 

One fact is undoubted, that to whatever other causes this 
contract is assignable, it is not to any distaste to the marriage 
on the part of Henry ; who, on the contrary, ardently desired 
it, as was proved by the alacrity with which, immediately on 



288 HER MARRIAGE WITH HENRY. 

his beooming his own master, he proceeded to accomplish the 
engagement, in spite of the objections of Warham, who liked 
not the circumstances of the alliance. 

Scarce had he ascended the throne, before he stated to Fu- 
ensalida, in expressing his determination to fulfill his father's 
contract, that he loved Katharine above all other women ; 
and, for many years after his marriage, after, even, he had be- 
come a faithless and negligent husband, he esteemed her vir- 
tues, appreciated the sweet gentleness of her character, the irre- 
proachable dignity and purity of her life, admired her talents, 
and loved her as well as such men, as he, are capable of 
loving. 

"On the day of St. Bernabos, June 11, 1509," says Bernal- 
des, the Spanish historian, quoted by Miss Strickland, " Donna 
Catalina wedded the brother of her first lord, who was called 
Enrico, in a place they call Granuche" — Greenwich — "and was 
crowned afterward on the day of St. John, with all the re- 
joicings in the world." "Her father, King Ferdinand, was so 
well pleased," adds another Spanish historian, " at his daugh- 
ter's second marriage, that he celebrated it by grand festivals 
in Spain, particularly by the jeu des cannes, or darting the 
jerreed, in which Moorish sport Ferdinand assisted in person." 

" On the 21st of June," continues the fair authoress, from 
whom I have quoted the above, " King Henry and Queen 
Katharine came to the tower from Greenwich, attended by 
many of the nobility. After creating twenty-four knights, 
Henry, accompanied by Katharine, on the 23d of June, pro- 
ceeded in state through the streets of London, which were 
hung for the occasion with tapestry. The inhabitants of Corn- 
hill, as the richest citizens, displayed cloth of gold. From 
Cornhill and the Old Change, the way was lined with young 



HER CORONATION. 289 

maidens, dressed In virgin white, bearing palms of white wax 
in their hands ; these damsels were marshalled and attended 
by priests in their richest robes, who censed the queen's pro- 
cession from silver censers, as it passed. Of all the pageants 
ever devised for royalty, this was the most ideal and beauti- 
ful. At that time, Katharine was pleasing in person. 'There 
were few women,' says Lord Herbert, 'who could compete 
with Queen Katharine, when in her prime.' She had been 
married but a few days, and was attired as a bride, in white 
embroidered satin ; her hair, which was black and very beau- 
tiful; hung at length down her back, almost to her feet ; she 
wore on her head a coronal set with many orient stones. The 
queen, thus attired as a royal bride, was seated in a litter of 
white cloth of gold, borne by two white horses. She was fol- 
lowed by the female nobility of England, drawn in whirlcotes, 
a species of car that preceded the use of coaches. Thus she 
proceeded to the palace of Westminster, where diligent pre- 
paration was making for the coronation next day. Caven- 
dish asserts that all the orders for the king's coronation and 
the funeral of King Henry VII. were given by Katharine, the 
illness of the king's grandmother and the youth of the king 
were, perhaps, the reasons that she had thus to exert herself." 
That venerable lady, the Countess of Richmond, who had been 
regent up to the period of the coronation, when Henry at- 
tained his eighteenth year, died a few days after that occur- 
rence, and her decease, joined to a dreadful pestilence, which 
broke out in London, banished the court to Richmond, where 
Henry passed the year in " pageants, masking, and diversions 
of the like nature, into which he entered with all the avidity 
of a grown-up child." 

It is pleasant to know, that the first act of royalty performed - 
M 19 



290 "WAR WITH FRANCE. 

by this good queen, was one, consistent with her whole career, 
of merey, charity, and justice. At her intercession, the unfor- 
tunate agents of the late monarch's extortions, Empson and 
Dudley, who had been, both illegally and unjustly, attainted 
for high treason, were respited for a while, and would proba- 
bly have been pardoned, had not the clamors and accusations 
of the people, which fatigued Henry's ears and wore out his 
patience, during a progress to the northern part of his domin- 
ions, induced him to order them for execution, finding it 
cheaper to repay his father's debts to his subjects with inno- 
cent blood, than by refunding the amount which he owed 
them. 

During the two years, which followed, history lias nothing 
to record, save the balls, revels, and devices of the court, the 
tilts, tournaments, and barriers, at which the young king ex- 
ercised and distinguished himself, fighting daily before the 
queen and her ladies; the former affecting, probably, an interest 
in those rude sports, which she did not really feel — for she was 
of a grave and sedate humor, addicted to literary amusements 
and studies, strictly observant of her religious duties, and a rare 
proficient, not ia Latin only, in which she composed fluently 
and correctly, but in the feminine and beautiful art of em- 
broidery, in which she was held to excel. 

In the year 1512, however, he determined to intervene iu 
the war, waging between Pope Julius II. and the French king, 
in which most of the European kingdoms were in some sort 
involved ; and, in June of that year, the third after his accession 
to the throne, he sent an army, under the Marquis of Dorset, 
in Spanish transports, to the coast of Guipuscoa, to cooperate 
in the conquest of Navarre, and the invasion of Picardy and 
Guienne. At the same time, Sir Edward Howard was ap 



KATHARINE QUEEN REGENT. 291 

pointed to cruise in the Channel, to blockade the French fleet 
in its harbors, and to act in concert with the armies. Both 
these expeditions were unsuccessful. The army lying inactive, 
owing to want of concert with the Spaniards, became muti- 
nous in consequence of want and pestilence, lost nearly half 
its numbers, and finally returned home, having effected no- 
thing, and gained no honor. Sir Edward Howard, whose fa- 
vorite maxim it was, that a sailor's highest virtue is the height 
of rashness, after seeing his great ship, the Regent, burnt be- 
fore his face, fell in a desperate attempt to cut out six French 
galleys, which were moored in the bay of Conquet, under the 
defence of batteries and rocks planted with cannon. Boarding 
the largest of the enemy, at the head of a handful of men, he 
was unsupported, overwhelmed by numbers, and thrust over 
board by the pikes of the defenders, casting the insignia of 
command, his admiral's golden whistle, into the waves, that it 
might not be a trophy in the hands of the foes of England. 
This gallant officer, scion of an illustrious and noble race, "was 
a friend of Queen Katharine and her parents, having served 
as a volunteer at the seige of Granada ; he bequeathed to her 
in his will a beautiful relic of antiquity, the grace-cup of 
Thomas a Becket. The queen subsequently restored the 
the cup to the noble family of Howard, in whose possession it 
yet remains." 

In the following year, burning to achieve glory and to avenge 
the disasters of the late campaign, Henry took the field in per- 
son, passing over to Calais at the head of a great army, and 
professing his resolve never to desist from the war, until he 
should have reconquered all the French dominions of the En- 
gl ish crown, lost in the disastrous reign of Henry VI. Before 
departing, he constituted Katharine queen regent of the realm, 



292 HER LETTERS TO HENRY. 

during his absence, with larger powers than any female had 
ever held in England, with the title of captain-general of all 
his forces, aided by a council of five nobles — a trust which 
proves how absolute, at this time, was his confidence in her, 
and which was fully justified by the wisdom and energy which 
she displayed in her government. 

Henry's showy and vain-glorious campaign, which had no 
results beyond the fruitless victory of " the Spurs," and the 
no less fruitless capture of Terouenne and Tournay, gained, at 
the best, empty honor only, for the country ; but the arms of 
Katharine at home, wielded by the noble Earl of Surrey and 
his two gallant sons, Sir Thomas and Sir Edmund Howard, 
the latter father of a future queen of England, yet more unfor- 
tunate than his first royal mistress, were crowned alike with 
glory and advantage ; for James IV. of Scotland, who had 
married Henry's sister, Margaret, and who now took occasion 
of his brother-in-law's absence, and the war with France, to in- 
vade his dominions, suffered the heaviest defeat on the famous 
field of Flodden, which had befallen a Scottish army since the 
disastrous rout of Nevil's Cross— at which, as now, an English 
queen commanded, Philippa, regent for Edward I., like Henry, 
absent in France with his army— and lost the flower of his 
kingdom and his own life, in guerdon of his unjust and unchiv- 
alrous attempt. 

The letters of Katharine to her husband, to Wolsey, now 
rising in power and in the royal favor, and to other officers 
of the crown, which are yet extant, display at once the great- 
ness of her talents, the goodness of her disposition, and her 
administrative capacity. They are written in pure, idiomatic 
English, without any foreign tone or expression, and indicate 
how completely, when she assumed the crown of England, she 



HER MERCIES. 293 

assumed also the heart and feelings of au English -woman, as 
well as the dignity of an English queen. It may here be sta- 
ted, if only to refute a charge, probably false, on the memory 
of Ferdinand, who is said to have suggested to Henry the ju- 
dicial murder of De la Pole, earl of Suffolk, who was sacri- 
ficed to the jealousy nourished by Henry against every one, 
who claimed the dangerous honor of representing a drop of 
the blood of York, and consequently having the remotest show 
of pretence to the succession, that, as she did in the case of 
Warwick, of Empson and Dudley, of the princely Bucking- 
ham, and of all the unhappy victims of Henry's rage or policy, 
Katharine argued and entreated earnestly, though in vain, on 
the side of mercy. There was no taint of blood on the un- 
stained whiteness of her regal ermine ; and, even to the ex- 
communicated corpse of the ruthless invader, James, she had 
rendered royal honors, and would have granted a kingly in- 
terment, but that the return of Henry, who meanly avenged 
the sins of the living man upon the dead clay, frustrated her 
clemency, and defeated her pious intent. 

In the following September, Henry landed at Dover, and 
rode post, incognito, to surprise the queen at Richmond, 
" where," observes Hall, " there was such a loving meeting, 
that every one rejoiced who witnessed it." Yet under the ex- 
terior show of love, there was already the hollowness of infi- 
delity ; for it was during this campaign, that he first met, at 
Calais, Elizabeth Taillebois, his first, and, for a long time, his 
only mistress, with whom he maintained a connection for 
many years, though with little publicity, meeting her in pri- 
vate at a place called Jericho, near New Hall, in Essex, where, 
in 1519, she bore him a son, Henry Eitzroy, afterward Duke 
of Richmond ; whom, on the failure of all hope of heirs male 



294 ANNE BOLEYN. 

by Katharine, he once contemplated legitimating and making 
his heir. This, however, he was prevented doing by the de- 
cease of the young man, previous to the repudiation of the 
queen. 

On the 18th of February, 1516. the queen, who had already 
been the mother of at least two princes, neither of whom long 
survived his birth, was again brought to bed, this time of a 
daughter, who was named Mary, after her beautiful aunt, the 
queen of France; who, after her husband's decease, had re- 
turned to her native land, and married the object of her first 
youthful fancy, Charles Brandon, the gay and gallant duke of 
Suffolk. With this lady is associated the first mention of the 
queen's future rival and successor, Anne Boleyn, who accom- 
panied her, as one of her train, then quite a girl, to France, on 
her wedding with Louis XII. ; and who, almost alone of her 
English ladies, was permitted to remain in her suite, when the 
rest of her attendants were dismissed. After the death of 
Louis, and the return of Mary to England, Anne was transferred 
to the service of the good Queen Claude of France, and is said, 
though, it is probable, without any real foundation, to have 
been a favorite of that merry monarch, Francis I., previous 
to attracting the regards of Henry. At this time, the court 
of Katharine was graced by the presence of two queens dow- 
ager, both of them sisters of her lord, Mary of France, and 
Margaret of Scotland, beside an unhappy princess, the daugh- 
ter of the unfortunate Clarence, and sister to that young, un- 
happy Warwick, who died to secure her own accession to the 
crown. To this royal lady her unvarying kindness and con- 
stant friendship, is a beautiful trait of her gentle and loving na- 
ture, ever anxious to compensate the cruelties of her husband 
to the survivors of his victims ; as was her successful interces- 



VISIT OF CHARLES V. 295 

sion, in behalf of the London apprentices, condemned to death 
for their fierce riot, on what is known as " 111 May -day," against 
the Spanish residents, her own countrymen and loving subjects, 
a proof of her forgiving disposition and true attachment to her 
English people. 

Eighteen months after the birth of the Princess Mary, the 
queen had once more hope of giving the king an heir, hope 
which was again frustrated by the death of the infant, so soon 
as it saw the light. It was after this disappointment, that 
Henry publicly owned his son by Elizabeth Taillebois, " a cir- 
cumstance which," as Miss Strickland justly observes, " gave 
the queen more uneasiness than any jealousy ever occasioned 
by the boy's mother." 

In 1520, the year was rendered famous by two great events, 
one of which, at least, made glad the heart of Katharine, 
though probably she had little pleasure in the empty pomps 
and lavish vanities of the other — the first of these, was the 
visit of her nephew, Charles V., the emperor of Germany, 
who landed at Dover, and afterward was spendidly entertained 
at Calais, whither the royalty of England had crossed over, in 
order to the second event, alluded to above, the meeting of 
the kings on the field of Ardres, better known as the field of 
Cloth of Gold. At this interview, Charles entered into a con- 
tract of marriage with his cousin, the Princess Mary . of En- 
gland, and was much delighted with his reception, with the 
splendor of the English court, and with the enviable position 
of his aunt, of " whose happiness he often spoke, in being wed- 
ded to so magnificent a prince as Henry." 

Little did he think how hollow and insincere was that out- 
ward magnificence ; how soon that happiness was to come to 
a close 5 how low that position was to be brought down, be- 



296 THE FIELD OF CLOTH OF OOLD. 

fore the arrival of death, that common leveller of the great- 
ness of kings. 

To Katharine, the field of the Cloth of Gold produced no result, 
unless it be the real friendship, to which it gave birth, between 
herself and the good Queen Claude of France ; for although 
Anne Boleyn was certainly present, in the train of the French 
queen, it does not appear, that she even excited the attention 
of Henry, much less aroused the jealousy of the queen ; who had, 
at that very moment, reason why she should be aggrieved at the 
conduct of Anne's younger sister, Mary Boleyn, a fair, blue- 
eyed beauty, who was, at this time, even more openly and os- 
tensibly Henry's mistress, than the beautiful Taillebois had been 
before her. For some reason, it is difficult to say why, Miss 
Strickland chooses to discredit this fact, as she does other well 
proved circumstances in the life of Anne, to which I shall al- 
lude, hereafter ; although it is notorious, that it was by his 
own shameless assertion of his connection with the younger 
sister, though neither marriage nor contract between the par- 
ties was pretended, that he procured his subsequent marriage 
with Anne to be declaimed null from the beginning, and its off 
spring illegitimate. The clever authoress produces some very 
pretty sentiment on this subject, in relation to Mary's subse- 
quent nuptials with William Carey, as disproving the reports 
of her intimacy with Henry ; just as if all history did not 
teem with examples of fair ladies content to bury the honor, 
or dishonor, whichever it may be deemed, of royal sultanaship, 
under the name of wife ; and of court gallants willing to ac- 
cept beauty, even when tainted by the touch of kingly favor. 

In 1522, war was again declared against France, and, all 
the English being recalled to their own country, Anne Boleyn 
returned to England, and was appointed to the same office in 



AJSNE BOLSYN, 297 

the court of Katharine, which she had held in that of Mary 
and Claude of France, and Margaret of Navarre. She seems, 
however, to have made, as yet, no impression on Henry ; at 
least the first evidence of his entertaining any regard for 
her, is found in the passion into which he burst on learning, 
in 1523, that she was contracted to Henry Percy, son of the 
Duke of Northumberland, and the pains which he took, by 
aid of the Cardinal Wolsey, to break off the marriage. 

Still, it is clear that the maid of honor did not as yet under- 
stand, or appreciate, Henry's views — perhaps, she imagined 
that he had deprived her of a noble husband, only in order to 
make her a royal concubine, a questionable honor, which she 
by no means appreciated, not yet entertaining a suspicion of 
the ulterior views, which possibly Henry had not, as yet, him 
self conceived. At all events, she retired, indignant and of- 
fended, from court to the shades of her father's noble place of 
Hever Castle, in Kent, having, it is said by some, been dis- 
missed from her situation about the queen, as a punishment 
for the favor she had shown to the suit of Percy. From this 
year, until 1527, there is no mention of her in history, unless 
it be a vague rumor that the king, on one occasion visiting 
Hever Castle, the lady took to her bed on the pretence of in- 
disposition, and did not suffer herself to be seen, until after the 
departure of the royal guest. It is, by some writers, ascribed 
to this dissolution of her contract with Percy, that she was so 
constant and unrelenting an enemy to Wolsey ; but it is far 
more likely that his subsequent opposition, to her elevation 
to the throne, earned him her ill-will, than his agency in this 
matter, which, however much it might have grieved her at 
the moment, certainly, in the end, paved her way to the 
throne, 



PEACE WITH FRANCE. 



At this same period, Katharine also disappears almost en- 
tirely from the page of history. Her ill health probably in- 
capacitated her from taking, any longer, a part in Henry's ab- 
surd pageants and revelries ; as her gentle and domestic hab- 
its held her aloof from his hunting matches, in which she never 
took any delight. Her studious tastes increased on her, at the 
same time her religious observances degenerated into something 
like asceticism, and, at the very moment, when her declining 
beauty, her increasing years, and her failure to give him a son, 
had begun to operate on Henry to her disadvantage, she fur- 
nished her rival with weapons against herself, by withdraw- 
ing herself from participation in the king's boisterous amuse- 
ments. 

In 1525, Sir Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father, was created 
Viscount Rochefort; in 1527, she was recalled to court and re- 
appointed to her old station about the queen's person, her old 
lover, Percy, having been compelled to marry Mary Talbot, 
daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, with whom he led a most 
unhappy life. It was on the 5th of May, in this year, that 
peace was reinstated with France, and Mary, the king's daugh- 
ter, recontraeted to Francis, in breach of her engagement to 
Charles of Spain. 

It is a significant circumstance, that at a grand masque, given 
to the French ambassadors at Greenwich, Anne was the king's 
partner in the dance, and that in the conferences relating to 
the marriage, the first idea of Mary's illegitimacy and of the 
unlawfulness of his union with Katharine was, according to 
Henry and Wolsey, suggested by a question of the Bishop of 
Tarbez, concerning the dispensatory power. The allegation is 
proved to be false, by the minutes of the conferences which 
bave been preserved but the fact has its value, as proving the 



CONDUCT OF KATHARINE. 299 

date when the divorce became a settled object of Henry's pol- 
icy, which was henceforth avowed to his ministers, and urged 
by them, as the " king's secret matter." This alleged question, 
it seems, speedily came to the ears of the queen, who imme- 
diately took measures to protect herself, by sending a private 
messenger to her nephew in Spain ; but Henry, falsely and 
cowardly protesting that he had no object in view, but to 
establish the legitimacy of their daughter, beyond a doubt, she 
was forced to remain apparently satisfied, though doubtless she 
was not deceived by the weak falsehood. 

It must have been a cruel aggravation to her anxieties, to 
have Anne always about her person, present at all her pro- 
gresses and entertainments, attracting, doubtless, all the king's 
eyes by the coquetries which she so well knew how to prac- 
tice, and monopolizing the attentions, which had once been her 
own, and which she was not content to resign. 

During all this trying time, the conduct of Katharine was 
more than irreproachable ; it combined all that consummate 
wisdom, perfect temper, feminine dignity, and conjugal duty 
could effect or suggest. Thus far, all decorum had been pre- 
served between Henry and his new dulcinea, however he might 
solicit her in private, ply her with love letters, decorate her 
with jewels, distinguish her above all other ladies. Thus far, 
it is probable, save in the resolve to rise unlawfully, Anne was 
an innocent woman. She had no mind, as she told Henry, to be 
his mistress, and, as yet, she saw no certain prospect of becoming 
his wife. She knew, that at this early stage to become the 
former, while the king had in no wise yet committed himself, 
would be to renounce all hope of ever becoming the latter. So 
far, therefore, since Katharine sacrificed nothing of self-respect, 
dignity, or decorum, resolute to do nothing which should pro* 



300 CONDUCT OF ANNE BOLEYN. 

voke, or in any way justify, a separation from her on Henry's 
part, and determined to maintain her own rights and those of 
her daughter, at all hazards, she would see nothing, hear no- 
thing, though of course seeing and hearing all things, but 
treated her rival with unvarying gentleness and propriety, ac- 
commodated herself to every wish of her husband, mingled 
more generally in the sports and amusements of the court, took 
part in the balls and masques, inclined her ear to minstrelsy, 
and made every effort to reconciliate the affections of her ca- 
pricious and licentious despot. 

Once only, she seems to have yielded to a momentary in- 
dignation, to have disclosed her knowledge of the secret in- 
trigues of the beautiful maid of honor. She was, it appears, 
on one occasion, playing at some game of cards, with the fa- 
vorite, in which the person turning up or holding the king 
stops, as the winner of the game. Anne had a run of luck, 
winning many times in succession, when the patient queen, 
shaking her head, sadly exclaimed, "Ah! my Lady Anne, 
you have the good hap ever to stop at a king, but you are like 
the others, you will have all or none." I cannot profess to 
see, as Miss Strickland does, any vindication of the honor of 
Anne, in this "gentle reproach" of the queen; nor can I be- 
lieve, with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in view of her return 
to court, her overt flirtations, and love-letter writings with 
Henry, immediately after her first lover's marriage, that " she 
would rather have been Percy's countess than Henry's queen;" 
on the contrary, I see, in her every move, a deep determina- 
tion to win the game, at all hazards; I see it in her coyness at 
one time, in her consent at another; and, above all, I see it in the 
implacable, unrelenting hatred with which she pursued all who 
opposed her marriage with the king,— -Wolsey to ruin, More 



VISIONS OF KATHARINE. 301 

and Fisher to the block ; and for the love and esteem, which 
she is said, by her encomiasts, to have borne to Katharine, I 
read base rivalry and cruel triumph ; I mark her ungentle per- 
secution of the fallen queen's orphan child, bastardized for her 
aggrandizement ; I see the triumphal dress of yellow, worn on 
that fallen rival's funeral day ; I hear the exulting speech — 
"At length I am the queen of England" — it needs not the im- 
agination of a Shakspere to conceive, if it might tax his pow- 
ers to create, the phantom of the abused, departed royalty, 
floating in vengeful majesty athwart the path of the exulting 
beauty, and replying to the wicked vaunt, " Not long ! not 
long ! " 

All this, which I can clearly see in the historic page, Katha- 
rine saw, beyond doubt, with the eyes of the flesh, and much 
of what follows after, she appears to have foreseen, with the 
eyes of the spirit. 

What during these long years of agony protracted, of hope 
now extinguished, now for a little while relumed, must have been 
the sufferings and sorrows of that royal lady, it taxes the most 
fertile imagination to conceive. From this time, Henry's ex- 
ertions to obtain the pope's decision on his divorce was open 
and unconcealed ; though, with his usual hypocrisy, he as- 
cribed these exertions to different causes, as he addressed him- 
self to different hearers — to the bishops and to his injured wife, 
he spoke of the troubles of his conscience ; to the temporal 
lords of the necessity of securing the successsion. He de- 
ceived no one, although all affected to be deceived, even Kath- 
arine, whom he would have persuaded that it was the validity 
of her marriage, not its original nullity, which he desired to 
have confirmed by Clement. 

Once, in 1528, a fearful pestilence broke out in the court, 



302 CAMPEGOIO AND THE DIVORCE. 

known as the sweating sickness, at the same time Campeggio, 
the cardinal legate, was daily expected in London, to hold the 
trial so long and anxiously desired ; and Henry, partly afraid 
of death, partly anxious to conciliate the good opinions, both 
of the cardinals and the people, affected penitence and piety. 
He sent Anne home to her friends at Hever, and returned en- 
tirely, as it seemed, to his habits of intimacy and affection with 
the queen. The change was not, however, of long duration, 
nor was it even sincere while it lasted ; for, at this very time, 
he was continually writing love letters, in the tenderest strain, 
and even occasionally paying visits to Anne, incognito, at He- 
ver Castle. 

In the autumn of this year, Campeggio arrived, with full 
powers to hear and to decide the case ; and Henry, feeling as- 
sured that he should easily obtain his wishes, as dispensations 
and divorces were, in those days, things readily granted to 
crowned heads, was in high hope and spirits. Both these 
were speedily diveited into blind wrath and frantic fury. The 
pope had been assured by Wolsey, who had thus far not 
looked unfavorably on the divorce, having it in view to ally 
the king, his master, either with Margaret, the beautiful duch- 
ess of Alencon, or with Renee, the sister of Claude of France, 
that Katharine would not refuse to assume a religious life. 
But now, to the dismay of all parties, and the fierce disgust 
of Henry, she declared openly that she had no idea whatever 
of making any religious profession, nor had she any taste or 
vocation for a religious life. Thereupon Henry blazed out 
into fury irrepressible, and declared that he had discovered a 
conspiracy on the queen's part to kill himself, her husband, 
and the cardinal, on which revelation his obsequious council, 
thinking his life in danger, advised him to separate himself 



THE LEGANTINE COURT. 803 

from her bed and board, and to take from her her daughter, 
Mary, lest she should turn her infant mind against her father. 

At length, the legantine court sate, in the great hall of Black 
Friars, on the 28th of May, 1529 ; the royal parties were 
summoned to appear ; Henry replied by two proctors ; but 
the queen appeared in person, followed by a great train of the 
noblest ladies in the realm, and by four bishops, as her coun- 
sellors ; then courtesying with much reverence to the legates, 
she appealed from them, as prejudiced and incompetent judges, 
to the court of Rome. The court continued to sit for weeks, 
hearing evidence on both sides, and, on the 18th of June, again 
summoned both the king and queen to appear personally be- 
fore them. Henry, when cited by name, answered, " Here," 
in a loud voice, and proceeded to deliver a long, hypocritical, 
lying speech, praising his wife for all possible excellencies, and 
descanting on his unwillingness to part with her, unless it were 
to soothe the pangs of his wounded conscience. The queen, 
on answering to her name, renewed her protest, on the ground, 
that all her judges held benefices in the gift of the king, and 
again appealed to Rome. Her appeal was denied by the court, 
whereupon, taking no farther notice of the legates, she made 
the circuit of the hall, followed by all her ladies, fell at Hen- 
ry's feet, and, after uttering an appeal so pathetic, in its calm 
and beautiful simplicity, that it melted every heart, save that 
one heart of stone to which her fortunes were unfortunately 
bound, left the court, in spite of the repeated citations of 
the crier, — " Katharine, queen of England, come again into 
court." One of her attendants, on whose arm she was lean- 
ing, called her notice to the summons; when she replied, 
" I hear it well enough. But on, on — go you on, for this is no 
court wherein I can have justice ; proceed, therefore." 



304 fisher's defence of Katharine. 

When she had withdrawn herself, a strange scene followed. 
Wolsey called on the king to exonerate him from the charge 
of having prompted the divorce ; Henry declared that this 
was true, for that the admonitions of his confessor, Bishop 
Longland, with the demurs of the French ambassadors, had 
first raised his doubts and scruples. As to the French am- 
bassadors, it has been already shown that they never broached 
or heard of the topic ; and the king's confessor, according to 
Burnet, asserted that, instead of his suggesting it to Henry, 
Henry was continually urging it on him. The king then pro- 
ceeded to state, turning to Warham to confirm his statement, 
that " these doubts having arisen, he had applied to him for 
license of enquiry, which was granted, signed by all the bish- 
ops." Fisher, of Rochester, denied that he had signed it, and 
on being shown his hand and seal, pronounced them both 
forgeries ; and, farther, when Archbishop Warham declared, 
that Fisher had permitted it to be signed for him, indignantly 
repelled the falsehood, pertinently enquiring, " Why, if he 
wished it done, he could not have done it himself? " 

Henry, enraged and wearied out by the fruitless debate, dis- 
solved the court in a fury. Fisher, who had been Henry's tu- 
tor, and was thought to be much loved by him, behaved, spoke, 
acted, as he was, a true, single-hearted, honest-minded man. 
But his defence availed the queen nothing, and cost him his 
life ; for neither his pupil, nor his pupil's paramour, ever for- 
gave him, until his gray head had rolled on the gory scaffold, 
nor forgave him then ; for they would deprive the mutilated 
corpse of the honors due to the lowest and the meanest of the 
dead. 

On the 25th of the same month, Katharine was again cited 
into court, and, on her refusal to appear, was pronounced con- 



CAMPEGGIO. 305 

tumacious. Her appeal to the pope was, however, read, signed 
by her own hand on every page, protesting as before ; and she 
wrote to her nephew Charles, that she would suffer death, 
rather than do ought that should compromise her daughter's 
legitimacy. 

On the following day she was visited by Wolsey and Cam- 
peggio, in the palace at Bridewell, where they found her em- 
broidering with her maids, and she came to them with a skein 
of red silk about her neck. They were commissioned to offer 
her a carte blanche of wealth and honors, from the king, and a 
patent of secondary succession to Mary, after the children of 
the next contemplated marriage, if she would consent to a 
divorce. 

Her refusal was absolute and uncompromising ; but, in a 
private interview which followed, she succeeded in gaining both 
legates to her cause, so that neither would ever pronounce 
judgment against her. When the legate's court was once 
more assembled, the king's counsel pressed in vain for judg- 
ment ; for Campeggio positively refused to decide, and referred 
the whole matter to the pontiff. The king's rage may be im- 
agined, from the conduct of his friends. His brother-in-law, 
the Duke of Suffolk, when the legates pronounced the court to 
be dissolved, started to his feet, dashed his hand on the coun- 
cil board, so that the whole house rang, and swore a fierce 
oath, that " England never had known a good day since cardi- 
nals came there." But Wolsey was as proud and bold as 
Suffolk, and retorted on him sharply. " Had it not been," he 
said, "for one cardinal, at least, the Duke of Suffolk would 
have lost his head, and had no opportunity of now reviling 
him." 

Soon afterward, Campeggio took his leave of the king, and 

20 



306 EXPULSION FROM WINDSOR. 

set off for Italy. But, before leaving England, he was subjected 
to a grievous insult, his baggage being searched by the officers 
of the customs at Dover, as if he had been conveying out of 
the realm Wolsey's treasures, but, in truth, in the hope that 
the king's love letters to Anne, which had been purloined, 
would be found in his mails. At the same time, Wolsey was 
disgraced, plundered, banished from the court, and, ultimately 
arrested for high treason, was probably saved from the block 
only by a timely natural death. 

For one year longer, the unhappy queen continued to dwell 
as his loving wife, with her reluctant husband, accompanying 
him in his progresses, eating at his board, and playing her part 
in the court pageants of which Anne was, in truth, the queen ; 
but when, on the following Whitsuntide, she refused to submit 
her case to an English court, consisting of four prelates and 
four temporal nobles, and expressed her determination " to 
abide by no decision but that of Rome," she was ejected con- 
tumeliously from Windsor castle; all her jewels, all her ward- 
robe, except what she chanced to have on her person, at the 
moment, and all the rich dowry, she had brought to England, 
were confiscated ; she was separated from her child, and infa- 
mously robbed of her dignity and title. Thenceforth, she re- 
sided at her manor of More Park, and afterward at Ampthill, 
near Dunstable. Anne, at once, took her place. In the king's 
pomps, his processions, in his journeys and progresses, in the 
hunting field, at the dining table, at the council board, she 
queened it openly. In all respects, save that she did not oc- 
cupy the same chamber, and bear the same name or title, she 
was received by his courtiers, and honored by himself, as a 
legal wife. Still, nothing could shake Katharine in her noble 
constancy, consistency and gentle virtues. Her beautiful let- 



SUPREME HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 307 

ters to the child, of whom she was so savagely bereaved, and 
whom she was not permitted to see, on her most urgent en- 
treaty, either when that child was pining for maternal love and 
maternal care, or when she was herself on her death-bed, 
breathe no strains but those of humility, piety and submission 
to the will of her savage lord, to whom she charges her to be 
an obedient, loving, grateful daughter. 

About this period, Henry received a private letter of friendly 
admonition and advice from Clement II., who was attached to 
him by ties both of gratitude and policy, advising him to take 
home his true and lawful wife, Queen Katharine, and inconti- 
nently to put away "one Anne," whom he kept about him. 
Henry was, for the moment, staggered. He had expected to 
gain his end easily ; and now it was clear to see, that the whole 
weight of the church and the whole opinion of the christian 
world, was against him. Following this secret admonition, as 
the thunderbolt follows the flash, came the decision of the court 
of Rome. It declared the marriage of Katharine valid, and 
its issue legitimate, by a preponderating vote of nineteen car- 
dinals out of twenty-two, the three malcontents venturing only 
to propose a farther delay. But, previous to the promulga- 
tion of this decree, events had occurred, which rendered it 
null, and in the end, produced the abolition of the pontifical 
authority and the Romish influence in England. 

Shortly after the fall of Wolsey, and the receipt by Henry 
of the pope's secret admonition, which had moved him so 
greatly, that he declared himself to have been grossly deceived 
in the matter, and went so far as to express a half-formed res- 
olution to abandon the attempt forever, Cromwell, who had 
risen on the ruins of his master, Wolsey, at the instigation of 
Anne, and her kindred — to whom such a change of sentiment 



308 CONFERENCE WITH FRANCIS. 

would have been degradation and destruction — suggested to the 
king the idea of setting the pope at defiance, causing the di- 
vorce to be granted in the ecclesiastical courts of his own 
kingdom, and declaring himself supreme head of the church 
of England. 

By this scheme, Henry would not only gain the power of 
making his mistress — of whom he was not yet utterly aweary, 
though possession had blunted the edge of his early passion, 
while her failure to give him a boy led him to dread that, in 
case of marriage, she would not perpetuate his race — but 
would convert to his use and pleasure, all the dues and droits 
claimed by . Rome, and, on the plea of reforming abuses, 
ultimately, all the wealth of the monasteries and abbayes of 
England. The bait took instantly, and, though Henry prom- 
ised Erancis, who visited him at Calais, in order to hold a con- 
ference on this very subject, that he would not proceed with 
his new project, until the French king should have made an- 
other attempt to bring Clement to grant the divorce, he never 
gave up the idea, which shortly afterward became a fact. 

On this progress to his French dominions, Henry was ac- 
companied by Anne, who had been recently invested Marchion- 
ess of Pembroke, with ceremonies not far differing from the 
coronation of a queen ; but the lady and her lover were equally 
disappointed by the evidence, which they received, of the light 
in which her character and station were regarded on the conti- 
nent, in the fact that, although especially invited, Francis 
brought neither Margaret, queen of Navarre, nor his sister 
Eenee, to the interview ; nor were any French ladies of rank, 
how anxious soever Francis might be politically and socially 
to gratify his powerful ally, found willing to lend the sanction 



ANNE BOLEYN S MARRIAGE. 300 

of their presence to the state of a person, who could be re- 
garded in no other light than that of a royal concubine. 

On the return of the king to England, circumstances pre- 
cipitated measures ; it was soon found, that Anne was likely 
to make her lover a father, before she was herself made a 
wife ; and, in order to secure the legitimacy of the child, a 
private marriage was resorted to, on the 25th of January, 
1533, which was celebrated in a room of the west tower at 
Whitehall, in the presence of Norris, who afterward suffered 
with the new queen, Heneage, another groom of the chambers, 
and Anne Savage, lady Berkeley, who bore Anne's train. 
The mass was performed by Dr. Rowland Lee, who demurred 
to the duty until Henry assured him — the assurance being a 
most unmanly and unkingly lie — that Clement had pronounced 
in favor of his divorce, and that he, then, had the instrument 
in his desk. Much mystification was resorted to in the con- 
cealment of the real date of the marriage ; which, it appears, 
bold as he was, Henry was afraid to avow, so indignant were 
the people ; and in the subsequent attempt to ante-date it, in 
order to save Anne's character for chastity ; but the date is, 
in truth, fully established by the evidence, as well of Wyatt, 
Anne's former lover, constant admirer, and defender, to the 
last, who fixes it on St. Paul's day, the 25th of January, as 
above stated. If this were not enough, Cranmer, the arch- 
bishop, also a supporter of Anne, wrote a letter, yet extant, to 
his friend Hawkins, the English ambassador near the court of 
the emperor, denying that he had married the royal pair, "for 
I myself knew not thereof, for a fortnight after it was 
done;" and, also, stating that she was married "much about 
Sainte Paule's daye laste." The object of this letter is to 
show that the marriage was previous, not subsequent, to the 



310 ANNE'S 0NCHAST1TT, 

coronation ; and the reason for the substituting of the words 
w much about" for " on," by the archbishop, who must have 
certainly known the real date of the celebration, is easily 
found in the fact that the Princess Elizabeth was born on the 
7th day of September of the same year, or seven months and 
thirteen days after the celebration of the marriage. This date 
is, of course, carefully suppressed, or slurred over, without 
comment, by Protestant historians, who, blinded by polemical 
partisanship, or by a false sympathy for their sex, like Miss 
Benger and Miss Strickland, positively deny that Anne was 
ever the mistress of Henry, or granted him any ante-connubial 
favors — but it, in truth, summarily settles the question. That 
she conceived a child to the king, two months before her mar- 
riage — even if that marriage had been anything more than a 
mere quibble, while a previous marriage existed, undissolved — 
is conclusive, as to her unchastity ; nor, when to this certain 
and undeniable proof is added the circumstantial evidence, af- 
forded by her occupation of contiguous apartments to the king, 
during at least three years, and by her being the constant 
companion of his privacy, as well as of his pomps, can it be 
doubted that, so soon as she felt assured that he was fully bent 
on repudiating his lawful wife, and espousing herself in her 
stead, she surrendered herself wholly to his passions, trust- 
ing to her own blandishments and beauty to secure his capri- 
cious favor ? 

Plow nearly that was lost, we have already seen. Had it 
not been for Cromwell's offer to place the power and the rev- 
enues of the English church in his control, it is probable that 
Henry would have discarded the paramour, of whom he was, 
perhaps, half satiated, so early as 1530, when the pope's pri- 
vate admonition reached him. Had she not found herself 



KATHARINE IN SECLUSION. Sit 

enceinte, after her return from Calais, it is probable, that she 
would have lived Marchioness of Pembroke, and died in her 
bed, not on the scaffold. 

On her expulsion from Windsor, Katharine replied only in 
these touching words, — "Go where I may, I am his wife, and 
for him I will ever pray." She never again saw her husband, 
or her child. Until after the marriage of Anne, she was al- 
lowed the title of queen, and the empty honor to be served, 
on the knee, and to be treated with the external deference, 
due to the rank which had been so rudely wrested from her. 
Of silent sorrow, of domestic grief, of anguish beyond expres- 
sion, patiently, nobly, unmurmuringly endured, history never 
preserves a record. We know only of Katharine's life, during 
her seclusion, between her abandonment and her divorce, that 
her time was passed, among her faithful ladies, in acts of char- 
ity, devotion, piety, varied only by the feminine arts and oc- 
cupations of embroidery, to which she had always been ad- 
dicted. Wherever she lived, the poor inhabitants of the neigh- 
borhood profited by her goodness, loved her, prayed for her, 
followed her with their sighs, when she was removed from 
among them. 

In the meantime, Cranmer was raised to the archbishopric 
of Canterbury, vacant by the death of Warham, taking the 
oaths of obedience to the pope, under the mental reservation, 
that he took that oath so far as it should not bind him to any- 
thing, contrary to the law of God, prejudicial to the rights of 
the king, or prohibitory of the reforms, which he intended to 
make in the church of England. 

The first measure he took, being, indeed, that for which 
alone he was appointed, was to open his court at Dunstable, 
for the trial of the case of Queen Katharine's marriage, having 



312 cranmer's decree. 

the Bishop of Lincoln for his assessor, and the Bishop of Win- 
chester and seven other prelates, for the king's councillors. 
The queen, who was resident at Ampthill, distant five miles 
only from Dunstable, was thrice cited to appear, and, not ap- 
pearing, the citations being proved, pronounced contumacious. 
Whereupon, Cranmer gave his decision, not divorcing the par- 
ties, but declaring the marriage null and invalid, as incestuous 
contracted and consummated in defiance of the Divine prohibi- 
tion, and therefore without effect from the beginning. 

A subsequent act declared the marriage of Henry with 
Anne to have been public and manifest, and confirmed it by 
the pastoral authority of Cranmer himself, so that it was in it- 
self valid from the beginning, and its issue legitimate. 

This measure was immediately followed by the coronation 
of Anne, which was celebrated with unusual splendor; and 
that by an unmanly and cruel attempt to degrade, yet farther, 
the forsaken queen. 

She was notified at once to be content with the style of 
Dowager Princess of Wales ; her income was reduced to her 
settlement, as Arthur's widow ; and all her attendants, who 
should persist in giving her the title of queen, were irrevocably 
dismissed. Still, Katharine would not yield one hair's breadth. 
" She had come a clean maid to his bed, she would never be 
her own slanderer, or confess herself a harlot of twenty-four 
years standing. She valued not the judgment, pronounced at 
Dunstable, while the cause was still pending 'by the king's li 
cense' at Eome, at a pin's fee ; and as to fears and threats, 
she feared not those which have power over the body, but 
Him only that hath the power of the soul.'" 

Henry had cruelty, ability, and courage to carry out his 
will, under almost every possible shade of circumstances ; but 



KATHARINE AT BUCKDEN. 313 

if his cruelty sufficed, he either doubted his ability, or lacked 
the courage, to carry out his persecution, to accomplishment, 
of his noble and unoffending queen. He could persecute her, 
and harass her with solicitations and commands ; he could dis- 
charge her women, and imprison her ecclesiastics and con- 
fessors — more than one of whom, after her death, possibly, he 
dared not do it before, he consigned to the fagot and the stake 
— but he could not bend her to resign, or compel her few 
faithful attendants to deny to her the title which was her due. 

At first she sojourned at Buckden, in what was afterward, 
and is now, the palace of the Bishop of Lincoln ; where her 
life, sad as it was, was embittered by the constant annoyances 
heaped on herself and on her servants, who would not be 
sworn to wait on her save as on the queen ; by the cruel sep- ' 
aration from her care of the young princess, Mary; by the 
act of succession, passed solely to illegitimate that unoffending 
child ; by the persecution of the adherents of her creed ; and, 
above all, by the judicial murder of Fisher and More, who, as 
she believed, to the end, were victims only to their attachment 
to herself. 

When a commission was sent down, with authority either 
to intimidate her by threats, or induce her by conciliatory of- 
fers of augmented rank and increased income, into consenting to 
her own degradation, her reply was still the same, — " For the 
vain glory of being styled queen, she cared nothing. But the 
king's wife she was, and would be ; and her daughter was the 
king's child, as God had given her unto them ; and so she 
would render her unto him, and in no otherwise." 

Then she commanded, as a queen, and as the queen they 
presumed not to disobey her, that the minutes of the confer- 
ence should be brought to her; and wherever the words 
N 



314 HER TIME FAST COMING. 

" Princess Dowager of Wales" occurred therein, she erased 
them with the dash of an indignant pen by her own royal 
hand. She was the lawful queen of England, she lived so, 
and, though she made no boast — as did her unfortunate suc- 
cessor, without making her boast good — that no one could 
prevent her from dying, as she had lived, England's queen, 
she died so. Henry himself dared not, or could not pre- 
vent it. 

While she was yet at Buckden, it was only a few months 
before her death, that the remarkable passage occurred in 
which, when she heard one of her ladies cursing Anne, she ap- 
pears to have foreseen, in her knowledge, doubtless, of her hus- 
band's character, the fate of her haughty rival. " Curse her 
not, curse her not," she said, " but rather pray for her ; for 
even now is the time fast coming, when you shall have reason 
to pity her and lament her case." 

And so was the time, indeed, fast coming ; but Katharine's 
own time was coming faster. Sorrow and suffering, hope de- 
ferred, and agony protracted, and the ineffable, indescribable 
heart-break of a spirit high" yet humble, proud yet patient, 
shattered yet self-sustained, had done more than the work of 
years on her delicate and deranged system. And, when the 
damp climate and clay soil of the low, fenny Buckden so aggra- 
vated the malady and depressed yet more the sinking spirits, 
of the native of the golden Granada, that she asked of her sav- 
age despot a change of scene and air, he ordered her to Foth- 
eringay, a place so notorious for its " ill air," that she refused 
to be removed thither, unless she should be " drawn by ropes" 
to that gloomy and malarious abode ; the prison in after days 
of a more calamitous and lamentable, because less innocent 
and noble, queen. 



HER LAST LETTER TO HENRY. 315 

The castle of Kimbolton, when she would not go, unless per- 
force, to Fotheringay, received her — a residence, agueish and al- 
most deadly, to the most recent times, from the influence of 
the miasma of the rivers Ouse and Nene, and the stagnant wa- 
ters, not far distant, of Whittlesea More. Sir Edmund Bed- 
ingfield was, nominally, her castellan, — virtually, her gaoler ; 
for no person was allowed access to her, even on her death- 
bed, without a warrant from the privy council ; her only child 
was not permitted to gladden her dying eyes ; and her inti- 
mate friend, the Lady Willoughby, obtained access to her 
chamber, in her last moments, only by the exertion of much 
fortitude and firmness, seconded by some female artifice. 

The will of this excellent woman and admirable queen, pray- 
ing for the payment of a faw just debts to her immediate de- 
pendents, out of her own jointure as dowager of Wales, of 
which wretched pittance, even, her base and brutal husband, 
who had already pocketed her dowry, and plundered her jewel 
box and wardrobe, regularly defrauded her, speaks volumes 
for her worth and her unworthy treatment. 

Her last letter, to the husband of her youth, the father of 
her child, the destroyer of her happiness, her life, her all, ex- 
cept her honor, might have wrung tears from stone. It is 
here : — 

" My lord and dear husband, I commend me to you. The 
hour of my death draweth fast on, and, my case being such, 
the tender love I owe you forceth me, with a few words, to 
put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your 
soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, 
and before the care and tendering of your own body, for the 
which you have cast me into many miseries, and yourself into 



316 KATHARINE S DEATH. 

many cares. For my part, I do pardon you all, yea, I do 
wish and devoutly pray God that he will also pardon you. 

" For the rest, I commend unto you, Mary, Our daughter, 
beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I heretofore 
desired. I entreat you also in behalf of my maids, to give 
them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but 
three. For all my other servants, I solicit a year's pay more 
than their due, lest they should be unprovided for. 

" Lastly, do I vow that mine eyes desire you above all 
things." 

I said, that this letter might have wrung tears from stone. 
It is on record that it did wring tears from Henry. How far 
those were Egyptian tears, such as the crocodile is feigned to 
shed, he can judge, who is informed, that, after weeping, this 
most unkingly husband of that right royal queen, dispatched 
his right-hand rascal — I know no other word, in our strong 
Saxon tongue, wherewith to typify Solicitor-general Rich, or 
my Lord-chancellor Wriothesley — to Kimbolton, to devise 
means, whereby he might seize and convert to his own use, 
without paying her just debts, the miserable goods and chat- 
tels, the relics of the scanty wardrobe — not equal to that of an 
English yeoman's goodwife — of her, his true queen, and the 
daughter of the mighty Ferdinand and Isabella, to whom, be- 
side Castille and Arragon and Leon, Columbus had given a 
new world, beyond the Herculean pillars and the western sea. 

Whether the king and his attorney succeeded in their 
scheme, history has not told us — if they did not, pettifogging 
Rich was not to blame for it. He advised his master, that' to 
claim her goods, as his own, would be to acknowledge her his 
wife ; and therefore suggested, that he should administer for 



KATHARINE S PERFECTION. 317 

her, as Princess Dowager of Wales, and then confiscate all, as 
insufficient for the charges of her funeral. 

It matters not whether the advice was acted upon or no. 
The animus, the intent, are undeniable. The advice, in this 
ease, condemns no less the receiver, than the giver. Such a 
servant must have had no other than such a master. Tacitus 
has recorded the atrocities of the Ceesars, he has told how they 
butchered their sisters, mistresses, wives, mothers, but it was 
left to the Defender of Faith and the first Head of the church 
of England, to cut the purses and rob the legatees of his 
victims. 

As Katharine of Arragon, I know of no woman, recorded in 
veritable history, or portrayed in romance, who approaches so 
nearly to perfection. So far as it is permitted to us to see 
her character, without or within, there was no speck to mar 
the loveliness, no shadow to dim the perfection, of her fault- 
less, christian womanhood. If anything mortal could be per- 
fect, that mortal thing, so far as man may judge, was Katha- 
rine of Arragon. 

"In the words of Dr. Harpsfield,* 'she changed this woful, 
troublesome existence for the serenity of the celestial life, and 
her terrestrial ingrate husband, for the heavenly spouse, who 
will never divorce her, and with whom she will reign in glory 
forever.' " 

* Quoted from Strickland's Queens of England, to whose research — although I dif- 
fer toto ccelo from most of her deductions, and estimates of charactei — I gladly record 
my obligation. 



,... 



ANNE BOLEYN. 



MARRIED, 1533 ; BEHEADED, 1536. 



When passion taught a monarch to bo wise, 
And gospel light first dawned from Anna's eyes. 

Geat. 
What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? 

Byeon, Ghilde Harold. 



AOE BOLEYN. 

BORN, 1501-7 ; MARRIED, 1533 J BEHEADED, 1536. 



"When passion taught a monarch to be wise, 
And gospel light first dawned from Anna's eyes. 

"What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? 

Bybon. 



CHAPTER V. 



That female beauty has a magic spell, dazzling the eyes 
and bewildering the judgment of contemporaries, who, behold- 
ing its brightness, are under the direct influence of its power, 
is too notorious to be a matter either for marvel or comment. 
It is but the old story of that Athenian advocate, who, finding 
that, on the evidence, his frail client must needs be convicted 
of the crime laid to her charge, unveiled her charms to the 
eyes of the aged judges of the Heliasa, and won from them 
by the mute eloquence of that unrivalled beauty, the verdict, 
which he despaired of gaining by all his powers of oratory or 
argument, which had no innocence for its support. But that 
the mere report of loveliness, which their own eyes have never 
looked upon, and which they receive only at tenth hand from 
hearsay, when centuries have passed since that vaunted excel- 
lence of form and feature has mouldered into the all-equalizing 
N* 21 



322 HISTORICAL PARTISANSHIP. 

grave, should warp the candor and disarm the judgment o{ 
grave and sober-minded historians, converting them into mere 
partisans, apologists, or even encomiasts, does, indeed, appear 
wonderful and unaccountable, but, not for that, is it the less 
true. 

In two instances, especially, that of the unhappy lady, of 
whom it is my earnest aim and intent to draw a truthful por- 
trait, having it still in mind, " naught to extenuate and naught 
set down in malice," and that of the no less woful queen, Mary 
of Scotland, has this been the case. 

In both cases, their charms, while they were living, so mad- 
dened the spirits of men and fascinated their understandings, 
that nothing approaching to an impartial censure of their con- 
duct or characters could be expected from those, who looked 
upon them, where they were not manifestly hostile and influ- 
enced by religious hatred, only to admire, to love, and to 
deem them incapable of wrong. But it is strange, that to this 
day, men speak tenderly, pitifully, forgivingly, almost lovingly, 
of those two unhappy sirens, seeming to consider it almost a 
sacrilege to impute guilt, or attach suspicion, to creatures so 
enshrined in the halo and consecrated by the odor of grace and 
loveliness, as these two fair, and, it must out, frail, enchant- 
resses of a bygone age. The tradition of their fascinations 
haunts us, as if it were a real presence ; the memory of their 
sorrow melts, the bitterness of their fate revolts us. We feel, 
as if we sate in judgment on their reputations, as if we saw their 
pale, despairing feces, their deep, earnest eyes waiting our de- 
cision, and witching us to mercy, "in the scorn of consequence." 
We almost fancy, that to pronounce adverse sentence is to 
bid the beautiful heads roll again upon the gory scaffold, the 



PARTY PREJUDICES. 323 

lovely eyes and lips, again to quiver in convulsions, when held 
up to the gaze of the abhorrent spectators. 

Another object stands in the way of the truthful historian 
of the lives of these fatally fascinating queens, whose love and 
favor seem to have brought misery or death to all on whom 
they rested — -it is this, that in the case of each, their virtues or 
their vices have been made almost articles of faith by the par- 
tisans of two hostile religions, who have identified their causes 
with the characters of the unhappy ladies, and have gone all 
lengths, and hesitated at no expedients, to vilify their reputa- 
tions or sustain their innocence. 

The Eomish party, justly attributing the English schism to 
the influence of Anne over the lustful and licentious despot, 
who shook off, in mere wanton wickedness, the yoke of Rome 
from the English neck, have assailed her memory with no 
less rancor, since her destruction, than her contemporaries, of 
the same creed, hunted her living to the block. 

The Protestants have, in like manner, but with far less 
cause, since Anne was no more a Lutheran, than she was a 
follower of Mahomet, or a favorer of reform, except so far as 
regards the subversion of pontifical authority in England, 
which was with her merely a matter of policy and self-inter- 
est, not of religion, persisted as far and as blindly in her vindi- 
cation. 

Precisely opposite has been the course, adopted by the two 
religious parties, in the case of Mary Stuart, the Scottish Cal- 
vinists, with the fierce, intolerant, fanatic, Knox, at their head, 
and the English Protestant subjects of Elizabeth, combining 
to blight her memory, after cutting short the thread of her sad 
life ; while the Papists as religiously maintained her purity, 
and still regard her as a martyr, almost canonize her as a saint. 



324 PARTIAL AND IMPARTIAL JUDGMENT. 

The lives of both these ladies have been given- to the public 
by authors of their own sex ; but little can be said of their 
fairness or impartiality ; naturally, perhaps, but, beyond doubt, 
unfortunately, they have chosen to buckler the cause of their 
sex, rather than that of truth ; and the result — more particu- 
larly in Miss Benger's life of the hapless queen, now under dis- 
cussion — has been, indeed, lamentable. It is not too much to 
say, that never was a work professing to be a history, so 
wholly unworthy of reliance. She omits all notice of dates, 
where to notice them would invalidate or controvert her the- 
ory ; she resorts to vague probabilities, not only in lieu of, but 
in contradiction to, approved facts; and, in every possible way, 
manufactures evidence to suit her purpose, without the small- 
est regard to consistency or truth. 

It is easy, it seems to me, to discern the difference between 
absolute innocence and absence of proved crime. It is possi- 
ble to distinguish between illegal sentence, and undeserved 
punishment. Above all, as it is natural to sympathize with a 
person cruelly persecuted, unlawfully condemned, and mur- 
derously sacrificed to the lust of bloody vengeance, not to the 
majesty of the law-so it is unnecessary and untrue, to attribute 
all possible excellences and an absolute immunity from all re- 
proach, to the victim of injustice, however flagrant, sanguinary, 
or atrocious, when that injustice is manifest, but in a single in- 
stance — and still more so, where the charges, although unsus- 
tained by sufficient evidence, are yet so countenanced by glar- 
ing probabilities, and self-evident presumptions, that it is as dif- 
ficult positively to pronounce the judgment virtually unjust, as 
it is easy to declare it actually illegal. 

I shall endeavor to lay the pitiful case of Anne Boleyn — for 
pitiful it is, although her conduct toward others was not such 



FAMILY OF ANNE BOLEYN. 325 

as to entitle her, in her own turn, to claim much pity for her- 
self — faithfully, and charitably before my readers, not forget- 
ting that it is a duty to lean to the side of innocence, where 
guilt is not manifestly proven, and to look with suspicious 
eyes on persecution, where the object of the persecutor is no- 
torious. Of Anne Boleyn's early life but little can be posi- 
tively ascertained, owing to her long-continued absence from 
England, and to the want of correct memoranda concerning a 
person, who was of little personal consequence, until her ro- 
mantic rise and disastrous fall, after she had advanced, at least, 
toward maturity. The date, even, and the place of her birth are 
doubtful ; the records and anecdotes of her youth are few and 
far between ; and it was found necessary to treat so fully of 
her conduct, in relation to her predecessor, the august Katha- 
rine of Arragon, in making up the memoir of that sovereign 
lady, so closely were the threads of their fortunes and fates 
intermingled during the pendency of the proceedings for di- 
vorce, and of Anne's accession to her perilous, and, as it proved, 
disastrous dignity, that little remains to be given, beyond a 
brief recital of facts, up to the date of her royal rival's de- 
cease, and the commencement of her own decline. 

It is stated by Lingard, a most industrious, laborious, trust- 
worthy, and generally impartial writer, that Anne Boleyn was 
born in the year 1507, but little more than a twelvemonth 
prior to Henry's accession to the throne. Miss Benger as- 
sumes the date, without inquiry, as a fact ; though she subse- 
quently discredits it, in a note, which, apparently, is done with- 
out her being aware that she does so. 

She was of illustrious, if not strictly noble, blood ; of a fam- 
ily, which had long enjoyed a high degree of royal favor, and 
which was connected by intermarriage with many of the proud 



826 anne's birth-place. 

est and most ancient lines in the realm. Her father, Sir 
Thomas Boleyn, who had distinguished himself in the late 
reign, fighting for the present king's father, against the Cornish 
insurgents, was the son of Sir William Boleyn, of Blickling 
Hall, in Norfolk, by Margaret, sister and coheir of Thomas 
Butler, the last earl of Ormond, and married Elizabeth How- 
ard, daughter of the renowned Earl of Surrey, victor of Flod- 
den-field, afterward raised for his services in that battle to the 
dukedom of Norfolk, which title had been previously in the 
family, till forfeited by his father for adherence to Richard III., 
at Bosworth, and which remains in it to the present day. 
This marriage brought Sir Thomas Boleyn into close connec- 
tion with the blood royal ; as his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas 
Howard, created Earl of Surrey, on his father's elevation to 
the dukedom, who himself led the vanguard at Flodden, hav- 
ing succeeded his brother, Sir Edward, as lord high ad- 
miral, had married Anne Plantagenet, sister of Elizabeth of 
York, wife of Henry VII., and mother of Henry VIII. He 
was, therefore, brother-in-law to the king's aunt ; and to this, 
probably, is due the early and constant promotion of himself 
and his family to offices and places of trust, about or under the 
crown. 

Hever Castle, in Kent, Rochefort Hall, in Essex, and Blick- 
ling Hall, in Norfolk, have all been named as the birth-place 
of Anne, but the evidences are strongly in favor of Blick- 
ling. Oral tradition still asserts the fact, which is believed 
even by the peasantry of the neighborhood ; and the older 
portion of the mansion, which is coeval with her birth, was 
long supposed to be haunted by her domestic spectre. Blome- 
field, the historian of Norfolk, and the antiquary, Sir Henry 



DATE CF ANNE S BIRTH. 327 

Spelman, in his Icena, the latter himself a Norfolk man, sim- 
ply assert it to be her birth-place, as a matter beyond cavil. 

" No fairer spot than Blickling," says Miss Strickland, from 
whom the above facts are derived, " is to be seen in the county 
of Norfolk. 

" Those magnificent, arcaded avenues of stately oaks and 
giant chesnut trees, whose majestic vistas stretch across the 
velvet verdure of the widely-extended park, reminding us, as 
we walk beneath their solemn shades, of green, cathedral aisles, 
were in their meridian glory three hundred and fifty years ago, 
when Anne Boleyn first saw the light in the adjacent mansion. 

" The room where she was born was shown, till that por- 
tion of the venerable abode of the Boleyns was demolished to 
make way for modern improvements." 

Here, then, it may be assumed, the future queen of En- 
gland was born, in or about the year 1501 — not, with all 
deference to Lingard's authority, in 1507 — when her lord and 
master, that was to be, was but ten years old. A difference 
of age so small as to set aside the possibility of the stupid and 
malicious slander, that she was Henry's own daughter; and 
coinciding nearly with Lord Herbert's estimate, who states, 
that she returned to England, on the recall of the English stu- 
dents from Paris, consequent on the declaration of war against 
Francis, which occurred in 1522; and that she was then in 
about the twentieth year of her age. It is also known, that 
she accompanied Mary, the beautiful sister of Henry VIII.— on 
her going to France as bride of Louis XIL-in quality of maid 
of honor, in the year 1514; which is not credible of a child 
of seven years, much less is it to be believed, that, on Mary's 
return to England a few months later, on her royal husband's 
death, so mere an infant, as she is represented to have been, 



328 DATE OF ANNE'S BIRTH. 

should be continued in that office, with a second queen of 
Prance, Claude the Good, the lovely wife of Francis of Valois. 

There is, however, evidence of her age, yet more conclusive, 
in a letter, yet extant, which she wrote to her father, on recep- 
tion of her appointment as Mary's maid of honor, and which 
is evidently the composition of no child, but of a mature- 
minded and sensible young woman, containing more advanced 
ideas, than one would now expect from a girl of fifteen years. 
It is, moreover, certain, as we shall see hereafter, that, subse- 
quent to her return to England, being about twenty years old, 
she had love passages of some considerable duration, and, as 
some have affirmed, a contract of marriage with Henry Percy, 
son of the Earl of Northumberland. Now, Henry Percy was 
married to Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
in the year 1523, after his flirtation with Anne had been 
brought to a close, by the interference of Wolsey and the 
young lord's father, at Henry's positive command. This is, 
of course, conclusive as to the fact of her being born long 
prior to 1507, as alleged ; since it is equally improbable, 
not to say impossible, that she should have been a maid of 
honor at seven, and that at fifteen she should have made so 
deep an impression on the mind of Henry, already a man of 
double her years, as to determine him on divorcing his lawful 
wife, in order to make so young a creature queen. 

It is not stated, positively, that she was present at the meet- 
ing of the kings of France and England, at the field of Cloth of 
Gold ; but as both the queens were sharers in the pomp, with 
their respective retinues, and as she was, at the time, Claude's 
maid of honor, it cannot be doubted that she figured in the 
show, though it is, surely, somewhat bold to speculate, with 
Miss Benger, on the chances of her having danced at a masque, 



ANNE S FIRST PROSPECTS MATRIMONIAL. 329 

given in honor of Henry, on the occasion of his visiting her 
royal mistress. 

After having remained some years — it cannot be stated 
with precision how long — in the service of Queen Claude, who 
was a lady something of Katharine of Arragon's stamp, pious, 
grave, devotional, and addicted to serious exercises and discipline 
almost conventual, more than to gayeties and court pleasures, 
Anne was tranferred to the household of the gayer, younger, 
livelier, though still perfectly discreet and virtuous, Margaret 
of Alencon, afterward queen of Navarre, of whose retinue she 
continued one, until the time of her recall to England. 

It appears that the character of the young English maid of 
honor had been liable, from an early date, to aspersions and 
imputations of something more than levity, Francis I. hav 
ing been named as too closely intimate with her, for her good 
fame ; but it is just to say, that these tales have no more 
weight than this — that they prove her conduct to have been 
early marked with that extreme levity and indiscretion which, in 
the end, without, probably, any real criminality, brought her 
to death and shame ; and that, in her desire for indiscriminate 
admiration, she cared little to preserve her character unstained 
by report, whether true or false, in its origin. 

It is evident, from many different circumstances, that, in 
1522, as a preliminary to the declaration of war, which ensued 
shortly afterward, the English students, at the university of 
Paris, and the English residents of superior class, were recalled 
to England, and among these came Anne Boleyn. There is 
reason to believe, moreover, that certain family reasons made 
her return desirable at this juncture, a dispute having arisen, 
and proceeded to a pitch of mutual exasperation, which per- 
haps threatened the public peace, between the powerful Or 



330 anne's first love. 

monds and Boleyns, concerning the inheritance of Anne's 
grandfather, the last Earl of Wiltshire. This strife, it was 
proposed, at the suggestion of the Earl of Surrey, to compose 
by the union of Anne with Sir Piers Butler, the rival kins- 
man ; and it is stated, that Cardinal Wolsey wrote to France on 
the subject, previous to Anne's return, and a few months sub- 
sequent to the marriage of Mary, Anne's younger sister, and 
Henry's second mistress, to William Carey. It is worthy of 
notice, as it explains the false and horrible report, that Anne 
was Henry's own daughter, while it in no wise diminishes one's 
sense of disgust at all the proceedings of the brutal and lust- 
ful tyrant, that the step-mother of these unhappy sisters, a 
Norfolk woman of low birth, whom Sir Thomas married after 
the decease of his noble Howard wife, was much about the 
court, stood high in Henry's favor, and yet not above the sus- 
picion of his love. The error between a real mother and a 
father's second wife, is easily reconcilable in the historian ; but 
what must we say of the man, who could be so much as sus- 
pected of having two sisters, and a step-mother, as his suc- 
cessive paramours, and one of the three his wife, after consent- 
ing to be his mistress. 

What became of the project of marriage with Sir Piers 
Butler, does not appear, but it probably never came even to a 
regular engagement, since Henry, who was singularly scrupu- 
lous concerning such technicalities, made no allusion to such 
precontract, prior to his nuptials, nor use of it when he was 
seeking a divorce, as he surely would have done, had he known 
or suspected the existence of any such. 

Shortly after her return, however, Henry, lord Percy, eldest 
son of the Earl of Northumberland, who was precontracted, 
much against his will, to Mary Talbot, was struck by the charms 



PERCY TAKEN TO TASK. 331 

and accomplishments of the new imported beauty, bedecked 
with all the fashions, graces and refinements of the French 
court, then as in all after time the arbiter eleganliarum of 
all the civilized world. Anne had been appointed, immedi- 
ately on her arrival, maid of honor to the queen of England, 
as she had been already to two queens of France ; Henry 
Percy, the descendant and namesake of the gallant Hotspur, 
was constantly in attendance on the cardinal, in whose house- 
hold he was a principal gentleman. The young persons were, 
therefore, thrown into frequent contact, both in the saloons and 
the ante-chambers of royalty ; they played their parts in the 
same pageants ; danced in the same masques, and soon came to 
distinguish one another from all the members of the gay and 
festive company, and, although Anne was already the cynosure 
of many eyes, wooed, openly, by Sir Thomas Wyatt ; ad- 
mired, perhaps, secretly by Norris, who was afterward so 
unfortunately connected with her fate ; and possibly — though 
this is a question — privately marked by Henry himself, as an 
object of adventure ; of which fact, however, if it were one, 
neither she, nor any other, as yet, entertained a suspicion — 
from fancy and flirtation, they soon came to mutual love, if 
not to troth-plighting and private marriage contract. 

By the direct orders of the king, Wolsey proceeded, in the 
first place, to take Percy to task for his conduct, and then, to 
bring the paternal authority of old Northumberland to his aid, 
in order to dissolve the unpalatable project, if not troth-plight. 
It is capable of proof, that the alleged cause of this measure 
was the engagement, existing on the part of both the lovers, 
to third parties ; and it is quite within the scope of probabil- 
ity, that Henry's despotic temper, enraged by opposition to 
the will he had expressed in sanctioning Anne's marriage with 



332 ANNE DISMISSED THE COURT. 

Piers Butler, had as much to do with his interference in the 
matter, as any fixed passion on his own part for the maid of 
honor. 

Anne, certainly, at this time, apprehended nothing less than 
that she was beloved of the king ; for we find, that, several 
years afterward, so late as 1527, while he was engaged in for- 
warding Henry's divorce from Katharine, Wolsey himself so 
little understood the extent of the king's infatuation, that' he 
desired, and believed it possible, to bring about the union of 
his master, with a French princess, probably Renee, the sister 
of Queen Claude. 

What is certain is, that Percy was banished the court, and, 
in the autumn of this same year, 1523, was compelled to 
marry Mary Talbot, in compliance with his early betrothal; 
and farther, that Anne was dismissed from her situation about 
the queen, and was sent home in a species of disgrace. 

From this period, until the end of 1526, or the commence- 
ment of 1527, Anne resided at Hever Castle, with her father 
and his second wife, whose union seems to have created a cool- 
ness between the Boleyns and the noble house of Howard- ; 
and this coolness may have, in some degree, led to, the ill-will 
so strongly manifested by the duke toward his unhappy niece, 
at the time of her trial for adultery and high treason. Of the 
conduct, deportment, or occupations of Anne, during her pe- 
riod of seclusion in the peaceful shades of Hever, no records 
exist, unless it be a local tradition, said to be preserved in 
Kent, that, the king on one occasion visiting Hever, Anne took 
to her chamber, on plea of indisposition, in order to avoid see- 
ing the royal visitor — conduct which, if truly told, may point 
as well to coquetry as to either modesty or anger. Miss Ben- 
ger chooses, gratuitously, to ascribe it to the virtue and discre- 



FIRST ADVANCES OF THE KING. 333 

tion of Sir Thomas Boleyn, whom she supposes to have been 
so much alarmed by the indiscretion of Mary, and evident ad- 
miration of the royal lover for Anne, that he desired to dis- 
countenance the growing intimacy — -an hypothesis utterly in- 
consistent with the known character of this cunning old cour- 
tier, who was commonly known as the pick-lock of princes, 
and whose undignified exertions to bring about the divorce, at 
all hazards, between the king and his lawful wife, so as to pave 
the way for his daughter's elevation, were so notorious as to 
provoke a public rebuke from Charles of Spain, when he vis- 
ited Madrid as the king's commissioner. 

About the time of the supposed visit to Hever, Sir Thomas 
was elevated to the peerage, as Viscount Rochefort, which 
is the second title to the earldom of Wiltshire, so long the 
disputed point between the Ormonds and Boleyns ; and, in 
the ensuing year, Anne was recalled to court, where she re- 
sumed her old office, and, shortly after her return, received a 
magnificent set of jewels from the king, and became, at once, 
the object of his devoted attention, and impetuous solicitation. 

A question has been raised, and even magnified into a point 
of importance, as to when and where Henry VIII. first saw or 
noticed Anne Boleyn, whether at Greenwich or York House, 
better known afterward as Whitehall ; but to me it appears 
of less than no moment. For I much doubt, whether the 
king's agency in the affair of Percy had aught to do with per- 
sonal admiration or attachment; inasmuch as it is scarcely 
conceivable that, if he banished that young nobleman in order 
to be rid of his rivalry, he would have driven the object of his 
illicit passion into the country, and abstained from all solicita- 
tion for a space of four years. Such an idea is neither con- 



334 anne's person and beauty. 

sistent with human nature in general, nor with the rash, furi- 
ous and fiery impetuosity of Henry, in particular. 

It may not be void of interest, to my fair readers more par- 
ticularly, to select from the accounts of contemporary writers — ■ 
all of whom well knew, and one of whom, the splendid poet- 
courtier, Sir Thomas Wyatt, loved her, dared to rival the 
king, himself, for her favor, and wrote her encomium after her 
ruin and death — some description of her person and accom- 
plishments, when first she appeared in the court of Kath- 
arine. 

" There was, at this time presented to the eye of the court," 
says Wyatt, " the rare and admirable beauty of the fresh and 
young lady, Anne Boleyn, to be attendant on the queen. In 
this noble imp, the graces of nature graced by gracious educa- 
tion, seemed, at the first, to have promised bliss unto hereafter 
times ; she was taken at that time to have a beauty not so 
whitely clear and fresh, above all we may esteem, which ap- 
peared much more excellent by her favor passing sweet and 
cheerful, and these both also increased by her noble presence 
of shape and fashion, representing both mildness and majesty, 
more than can be expressed. There was found, indeed, upon the 
side of her nail, upon one of her fingers, some little shew of a nail, 
which was yet so small, by the report of those that have seen 
her, as the workmaster seemed to leave it an occasion of 
greater grace to her hand, which, with the tip of one of her 
other fingers might be, and usually was, by her hidden, with- 
out any least blemish to it. Likewise, there were said to 
be upon certain parts of her body, certain small moles, inci- 
dent to the clearest complexions ; and, certainly, both these 
were none other than might more stain their writings with note 
of malice, than have catch at such light moles in so bright 



HER GRACE AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 385 

beams of beauty, than in any part shadow it, as may right 
well appear by many arguments, but chiefly by the choice and 
exquisite judgment of many brave spirits that were esteemed 
to honor the honorable parts in her, even honored of envy 
itself." 

Sanders, who is decidedly hostile to Anne, and who in ev- 
ery instance, where her character can be regarded in two lights, 
looks to the worst, thus speaks of her ; and his account is 
agreeable to the pictures which the writer has himself seen of 
her, and in which, though the features, especially the eyes, are 
lovely, he can easily conceive expression to have been her pre- 
dominant charm. " Anne Boleyn was in stature rather tall 
and slender, with an oval face, black hair, and a complexion 
inclining to sallow ; one of her upper teeth projected a little. 
She appeared, at times, to suffer from asthma. On her left 
hand a sixth finger might be perceived. On her throat there was 
a protuberance, which Chateaubriant describes as a disagreeably 
large mole, resembling a strawberry ; this she carefully cov- 
ered with an ornamental collar band, a fashion which was 
blindly imitated by the rest of the maids of honor, though 
they had never before thought of wearing anything of the 
kind. Her face and figure were in other respects symmetri- 
cal ; beauty and sprightliness sat on her lips ; in readiness of 
repartee, skill in the dance, and in playing on the lute, she was 
unsurpassed. She was unrivalled in the gracefulness of her at- 
tire, and the fertility of her inventions in devising new patterns, 
which were imitated by all the court belles, by whom she was 
regarded as the glass of fashion." 

"This gentlewoman," I quote from Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
who, though in the main, favorable to Queen Katharine, is fair 
and candid enough toward her successor, " being descended on 



838 anne's tjnchastity. 

the father's side from one of the earls of Ormonde, and on the 
mother's from a daughter of the house of Howard, was from 
her childhood of that singular beauty and toward ness, that her 
parents took all care possible for her good education. There- 
fore, besides the ordinary parts of virtuous instruction, where- 
with she was liberally brought up, they gave her teachers in 
playing on musical instruments, singing and dancing ; insomuch, 
that when she composed her hands to play and voice to sing; 
it was joined with that sweetness of countenance, that three 
harmonies concurred ; likewise, when she danced, her rare pro- 
portions varied themselves into all the graces that belong either 
to rest or motion. Briefly, it seems the most attractive per- 
fections wer<e eminent in her." 

After this passage, the historian proceeds to relate that " our 
- king did not love her, at first ; " and then, after narrating the 
circumstances of her love passages with Henry Percy, and the 
breaking off of that marriage, leaves it in doubt whether the 
cause of her anger toward the cardinal, which he emphatically 
, mentions, arose from her ignorance of the king's passion, or 
from her preference of Percy. This doubt, dependent, in his 
own words, on a whether, Miss Strickland perverts into an as- 
sertion on his part, that Anne " would rather have been Percy's 
countess, than Henry's queen." This is the way in which la- 
dies write history concerning ladies .* But, though the gallant 
cavalier will not undertake to pronounce upon the lady's in- 
tentions, he does testify very powerfully to the falsity of the 
charges of her being Henry's daughter, as also of her having 
been the leman of Francis I., and, moreover, vigorously insists 

* The passage in Lord Herbert, which Miss Strickland has thus distorted, and 
which I have been at some pains to hunt up, runs thus : " But Mrs. Bullen, whether 
that she were ignorant, yet, how much the. king loved her, or howsoever had rather 
be that lord's wife than a king's mistress, took very ill of the cardinal, &c, &c. 



SMALL PROGRESS OF THE KING. 337 

on the reality of her beauty, of which, by the way, the eccen- 
tric lord was a competent judge. "As for the beauty," says 
he, " and handsomeness of Anne Bullen, which the same au- 
thor," it is Rastal, of whom he speaks, " doth traduce, beside 
that it contradicts common sense, she having been, by their al- 
legation, the minion to two kings, even that picture of hers, 
extant still with the Duchess of Eichmond, doth sufficiently 
convince." 

Shortly after Anne's return to court, it is certain that the 
king began to make amorous assaults and lay violent siege to 
Anne's virtue ; and it is no less certain, that for a time she re- 
sisted his addresses, with a constancy and steadiness of virtue, 
which no one has the right to attribute, as I certainly have not the 
desire to do so, to anything but unfeigned modesty. After a first 
repulse and rebuke, Henry declared, it seems, that he should 
persist to hope, and her reply has been preserved — " I under- 
stand not, most mighty king, how you should retain such hope; 
yorr wife I cannot be, both in respect of mine own unworthi- 
ness, and, also, because you have a queen already. Your mis- 
tress I will not be." 

This is the language of virtue, and by virtue, I doubt not, 
It was prompted. Her ambition was not yet awakened ; she 
had no reason to dream that she ever could become the king's 
wife, or that he had either the idea or the power of making her 
so. The subject of the divorce had not yet been mooted ; 
nor was it a thing likely to occur to the mind of a young wo- 
man, who knew, doubtless, that the king had indulged himself 
in illicit loves before — once with her own sister — and who 
would, of course, naturally suspect him of entertaining the same 
and no other intentions toward herself. 

I regard, therefore, the imputation of some authors, that, 
O 22 



338 W0LSEY SENT ABROAD. 

from her first acquaintance with the king, or even so late as 
1527, she had a design to supplant the queen, and that she held 
back only in coquetry, with a view to increase his ardor, and 
not from modesty or virtue, as purely malignant and cruel. 
There is no rule more imperative, whether in forming private 
judgments, or in criticising the conduct of historical persona- 
ges, than that good motives must always be ascribed, not only 
to good, but even to questionable actions, until evil motives 
are decidedly proved. In this case, and up to this time, Anne's 
conduct was irreproachable, and it is unmanly, as well as un- 
just, to attribute baseness, where no baseness is shown. At 
this period, and much later, I doubt not Anne Boleyn would 
have chosen to be the wife of Percy, or of any other loyal gen- 
tleman, rather than to be Henry's mistress, nor, I believe, did 
she ever become the latter, until she was assured that the king 
was determined to make her his wife, and until she believed 
that the divorce would be sure and easy of attainment. It 
was about this period, that the divorce was first mooted, and 
Wolsey sent abroad to procure it, by tampering with the pope, 
the king of France, and other powers,, whom it was believed 
that the offer of English alliance would induce to favor the 
king's wishes. But it was not until his return from France, 
that he learned, and on learning endeavored by all means to 
combat, his master's resolution to raise Anne to the throne. 
This the cardinal opposed, not from dislike, as has been absurdly 
argued, to Anne, much less from any doubt of her leaning to 
Lutheran or Wickliffite doctrines, to neither of which, as Lord 
Herbert clearly shows, had she ever the smallest tendency. 
" And for her religion," says he, " there is no probability that it 
should other than what was commonly profest. Since it ap- 
pears by original letters of hers, that she was a special favorer 



ANNE NOT A LUTHERAN. 339 

of the clergy of that time, and preferrer of the worthiest sort of 
them to ecclesiastical livings, during her chief times of favor with 
the king. Though I will not deny but upon his defection from 
some articles of the Roman church, she might also comply." 
The same testimony is borne by Archbishop Cranmer, in his 
letter to the king, at the time of her condemnation ; in which 
he declares, " that he loved her formerly, because he thought 
that she loved the gospel." And on this expression Lingard 
well observes, in a note, " from this and similar expressions, 
the queen has been represented a Protestant. She was no 
more a Protestant than Henry. The ' gospel ' means the 
doctrine professed by Henry ; had the archbishop meant any- 
thing else he would have only accelerated her ruin." This is, 
indisputably, true ; the only article, in which Henry differed 
from the Roman church, was that which rendered it Roman, 
its dependence on the Bishop of Rome, as its head. He main- 
tained all its most ultra and offensive doctrines to the end, and 
was on the point of putting his last wife, Katharine Parr, on 
her trial for heresy. Had Anne Boleyn been a Lutheran, 
Henry would have been at no pains to prove her an adulter- 
ess, or to divorce her, but would have sent her to the stake as 
a heretic. At this time he had just been engaged in writing 
against Luther, and had newly received his title of " Defender 
of the Faith." 

It was not, therefore, from dislike to Anne, it was not from 
disapprobation of her religious tenets — for she had no more 
religious tenets of any kind, than any gay, volatile, fashiona- 
ble girl, brought up in licentious courts, is like to have — least 
of all, was it to subserve his own interests, that he opposed 
Anne's elevation, for those would evidently have been advanced 
by the advancement of the king's favorite, and the promoting 



340 wvatt's suit. 

the king's wishes. His opposition to Anne was founded on 
his conviction, as an English statesman, that the raising of apri- 
vate gentlewoman to the throne was in every way impolitic, 
and injurious to English interests, as tending to alienate and 
affront foreign princes, to breed intestine strifes, and to give 
undue preponderance in the state, to private families. And he 
was in the right ; for, from the days of Elizabeth Woodville, 
such have been the results, in every instance, where an English 
gentlewoman has been made an English queen. 

From this moment, however, begins a total change in Anne 
Boleyn's character and conduct. From this moment, she con- 
ceived the idea of becoming Henry's queen, and commenced 
dealing her cards, for that game. From this moment, we 
find her a finished coquette, playing fast and loose, hot and 
cold, as Henry appeared more or less urgent and enamored. 
At about this period she encouraged the addresses of Wyatt, 
who was now a married man, to such a degree as to excite 
his hopes — illicit hopes, for they could have been no other — 
so far as that he braved the rivalry of the king ; and by 
this means inflamed Henry's passions to the height of jealous 
fury. 

Wyatt, it appears, while toying with the maid of honor, on 
some occasion, as she sate at her embroidery frame, snatched 
from her a jewelled tablet and chain, and hung it about his 
neck, under his doublet, vowing that he would ever wear it 
for her sake. Henry, about the same time, despairing of win- 
ning her to he his mistress, began to court her to marriage, 
and took from her a ring, which he ever after wore on his lit- 
tle finger as a love token. 

Of this matter of the ring, Miss Benger observes, that this 
ceremony, "had it been performed before witnesses, would 



THE GAME OF BOWLS. 341 

have been equivalent to a solemn betrothment." That lady, 
in her eager advocacy of her heroine, probably meant some- 
thing, or other, by this ceremony of betrothment ; but, except 
in Utah, I am aware of no place in which a married man's be- 
trothment to an unmarried girl is valid ; or where her reputa- 
tion would not be damaged by such a betrothment. I men- 
tion this fact, merely to show how strangely literary partisan- 
ship may operate to blind the clearest minds. There never 
was a more virtuous lady, or one to whom an idea of moral 
turpitude, in real life, would have been more abhorrent, than 
Miss Benger ; and yet, in her zeal to bolster up Anne Boleyn's 
reputation, we find her inventing, as exculpatory, a circum- 
stance which, if true, would have been most condemnatory of 
her — her betrothment to a married man, during his undis- 
turbed cohabitation with his first and lawful wife. 

But to return to the tale — a day or two after he had gained 
the ring, the king was playing at bowls, in high glee and good 
humor, with the Duke of Suffolk, Sir Francis Bryan, and Wy- 
att, when there chanced to be a disputed cast, between Henry 
and the latter knight. The king claiming it, while Wyatt and 
his partner declared that "by his leave it was not so," the 
former bethought him of the other rivalry between himself 
and his fellow-bowler, and, thinking to abash him, pointed with 
his little finger, on which Anne's ring was conspicuous, to the 
disputed bowl, and exclaimed, with a meaning smile, "I tell 
thee, Wyatt, it is miner 

Thereupon, Wyatt drew out from his bosom Anne's chain 
and tablet, and retorting, "And if it may like your majesty to 
give me leave to measure the cast with this, I have good hopes 
it will yet be mine" proceeded to measure the ground. But 



§42 THE sweating:- sickness. 

Henry, in high dudgeon, spurned away the bowl, and broke up 
the game, crying, " It may be so, but then I am deceived." 

Three things strike one as remarkable in this story, which 
is related by Wyatt himself; first, the singular equality, which 
this bluff, cruel, despotical tyrant admitted, in privacy, with 
his associates ; secondly, the unquestionable evidence, which it 
affords, that the pursuit of Henry, thus far, was regarded, by 
his nearest friends, as merely licentious — for, had it been im- 
agined, for a moment, that he was courting her to be his wife, 
no man dared, for his life, to woo her ostensibly to infamy— 
and, thirdly, to call it by no harsher name, the shameless lev- 
ity of the girl, who would suffer herself to be the object of am- 
orous rivalry, between two married men, one of them the hus- 
band of her royal mistress, whom henceforth, it cannot be de- 
nied that she was endeavoring to supplant. 

From this time forth, Anne Boleyn took the lead in all the 
pageantry and splendor of the court ; and she now began to 
assume a state, to which she was in no wise entitled, and 
which greatly exasperated those of the lords, who retained any 
feelings of loj^alty or independence, and the common people, 
generally, against her. Once, during the dreadful pestilence, 
known as the sweating sickness, partly struck with a sort of 
pseudo compunction — for he seems to have been most unroy- 
ally afraid of the plague — partly from a desire to cajole the 
pope into a belief of his submission, Henry suffered her to retire 
to Hever, where he plied her with the most ardent love letters, 
to which she replied, so as to keep him up to fever heat, without 
surrendering herself to his passion. On her being taken ill 
herself, with the pestilence, the king sent his own physician to 
attend her; and, so soon as she had recovered, she was again 
brought back to court, and reinstated in all her former splen- 



henry's stolen visits TO ANNE. 343 

dor. After a short residence, however, still in the quality of 
maid of honor to her injured mistress, within the precincts of 
the palace, on the arrival of Cardinal Campeggio to try the 
question of divorce, she was again removed, as a matter of 
policy, and, in order to keep up an appearance of decorum, once 
more to the rural shades of Hever, where, though she with- 
drew reluctantly and even indignantly, she was cheered by 
constant love-letters, and frequent visits from the royal lover, 
who stole away, so often as opportunity offered, from his court 
at Eltham or Greenwich, and rode at the speed of his fastest 
horse to his lady-love at Hever, accompanied only by his two 
confidants, Weston and Norris, both of whom, it is strange 
and awful to relate, shared the fate of the then beloved and 
courted beauty. " Tradition still points to the hill, in front 
of the castle, where the well-known bugle announced the king's 
approach, and his impatience to be admitted to the beloved 
presence. At this welcome signal, the drawbridge was low- 
ered, the gates were thrown open, and Henry found all his 
constraint and trouble overpaid by a single glance exchanged 
with Anne Boleyn." In this, which is quoted from Miss Ben- 
ger, that lady sees nothing but platonic affection, nothing to 
detract from the fair maid of honor's unimpeachable delicacy, 
or to lead her to doubt the affection which she entertained for 
her noble and saintly mistress. 

Miss Strickland, likewise, alludes to the romantic visits to 
Hever ; describes the oak-pannelled chamber, from the case- 
ment of which Anne used to watch his approach ; and the an- 
tique gallery, in which she used to have her stolen interviews 
with her lover ; but, resolute as she shows herself to defend 
the corporeal purity of her heroine, in spite of the infallible ev- 
idence of dates, she cannot absolutely blind herself to the 



344 FALL OF WOLSEY. 

truth, that " if she abstained from compliance with the unhal 
lowed solicitations of the king, it must be ascribed rather to 
caution than to virtue." 

It must be admitted, in fairness, that from her letters, which 
are probably ascribable to this period of secession from court, 
and in one of which occurs the following remarkable passage — 
" I desire also, that if at any time before this I have in any 
way offended you, that you would give me the same absolu- 
tion that you ask, assuring you that hereafter my heart shall 
be dedicated to you alone. 1 wish my person was so, too. 
God can do it, if he pleases " — one may infer that she had, as 
yet, maintained her personal purity, though all her delicacy of 
mind was, clearly, gone forever. Hereafter, however, she lived 
either in lodgings contiguous to the king's apartment, .under 
the same roof with the queen, though keeping separate state, 
having a separate train, with chaplains, ladies in waiting, and a 
train-bearer, or in the splendid palace known as Suffolk H«5use, 
immediately adjoining Whitehall. 

On the 23d of July, 1529, the cardinal legates held their 
last sitting, and refused, in spite of all the instances of the 
king's advocates, to grant the divorce, referring the decision to 
the pope. The fury of Henry can be imagined; but the dark, 
silent resentment of Anne was yet more deadly and implaca- 
ble. Once or twice, Henry seemed on the point of relenting 
toward his old friend and faithful servant, Wolsey, whom she 
was bent to destroy ; but Anne's influence was too strong for 
him. On the last occasion he ever had to regain the king's 
ear, when an audience had been promised him, for the follow- 
ing morning, this wily woman carried off her lover on an 
equestrian expedition to Harewell park, provided a place for 
him. in which to dine, and there, " while he was dallying with 



wolsey's regrets. 345 

her in the gay greenwood, at their sylvan meal," extorted 
from him the promise, never to see or speak to the cardinal 
again. 

That promise — as ill promises, for the most part, are — was 
well kept. Even after his banishment to the see of York, 
Anne was, as Wolsey himself said, " a night crow, that pos- 
sessed the royal ear against him, and misrepresented all his 
actions." She never pardoned him ; not, when her first lover, 
Percy, now earl of Northumberland, whom his marriage with 
Mary Talbot had made the most miserable of men, arrested 
him at Cawoods, trembling, himself, with excess of emotion at 
thus sating his thirst of vengeance, and bound his legs, like 
those of the vilest malefactor, under the belly of his mule ; 
not, when, in his touching address to the Abbot of Leicester, 
he " came, a poor old man, to lay his bones among them \ " 
not, when he went to his long home, regretting only that he 
had not served his God as faithfully as he had his king. In 
the following year, Cromwell's scheme for the separation of 
England from the Papal see, and the granting of the divorce 
by an English court, was matured, and the measures were put 
in force for its accomplishment; and, forthwith, Anne took 
on herself all the pomp and dignity of queen. At Whitsun. 
tide, 1531, Katharine was ejected from Windsor castle, repu- 
diated from the bed and board of her wicked lord, and forbid- 
den to associate with, or even see, her child. Her rival, at 
once assumed her apartments, her place at the banquet, at the 
council-board, in public processions, in private festivities, in 
everything except style and name, she was queen of England ; 
and, to her ineffable disgrace be it spoken, to the orphaned and 
illegitimated child, and to all the friends and adherents of her 
fallen queen and rival, she showed herself, constantly, a cruel 
0* 



346 LADY ROCHEFORT. 

persecutress. It is idle to dispute the fact, that from this time, 
she was openly and ostensibly Henry's mistress. That she 
was so, a few months later, is evident from the date of her 
own marriage and of her daughter's birth. To the fact of her 
being enceinte of that daughter, she, unquestionably, owed it, 
that she was ever more than his mistress, or higher than the 
Marchioness of Pembroke. Her investiture with that title, 
argued ill for her chances of coronation ; the positive refusal 
of Francis to bring with him any of the royal ladies of FranGe, 
when he visited the king at Calais, proves how she was re- 
garded abroad ; the prospect of her bearing her lover an heir 
male made her a queen ; and, shortly afterward, her failure to 
do so, brought her to the block. 

It is a significant fact, that her sister-in-law, George Bo- 
ieyn, Viscount Rochefort's wife — her father had been, now, 
created Earl of Wiltshire — who was afterward the principal 
witness against her, and still later a fellow-sufferer with Jier 
cousin, Katharine Howard, was at this time committed to the 
tower, in consequence of her loudly expressed sympathies with 
Queen Katharine. 

To about tliis date it is s that we must refer a strange story, 
to which one would hesitate to give credit, were it not related 
by Wyatt. It is worthy to be repeated, only because, as 
Miss Strickland well observes, " it shows her determination 
to be a queen, coute qui coute." The following are her 
words : — 

"A book, assuming to be of a prophetic character, was, by 
some mysterious agency, placed in her chamber, one day. It 
seems to have been of a similar class with the oracular hiero- 
glyphical almanacs of succeeding centuries, having within its 
pages certain figures, marked with the letter h, upon one, a, 



THE STBILLINE BOOK. 347 

on another, and k on a third, which were expounded as the 
king and his wives ; and to her person certain destruction was 
predicted, if she married the king. Anne, finding the book on 
her table, took it up, and, seeing the contents, called her prin- 
cipal attendant, a young lady, named Anne Saville — 

" 'Come hither, Nan,' said she, 'see here this book of proph- 
ecies. This is the king ; this is the queen, wringing her hands 
and mourning ; and this myself, with my head cut off.' 

"Anne Saville answered, 'If I thought it were true, I would 
not myself have him, were he an emperor.' 

"'Tut, Nan,' replied Anne Boleyn, 'I think the book a bau- 
ble, and am resolved to have him, that my issue may be royal, 
whatever may become of me.' " 

In September, 1532, Anne was invested Marchioness of 
Pembroke, with ceremonies closely resembling those of a cor- 
onation, and, immediately afterward, repaired with the king 
to Boulogne and Calais, where he was to hold the conferences 
with Francis, regarding a reconciliation with Pope Clement IL 
Here it was that she met the slight, I have recorded above, in 
finding no French ladies, who should do her honor ; but she 
was, in some sort, reconciled to the affront, by dancing with 
Francis, who, on the following day, sent her a present of a 
jewel, valued at fifteen thousand pounds. Here it was, also, 
that Henry promised his brother monarch, that he would pro- 
ceed no farther with the marriage, until another attempt should 
have been made to gain the consent of Clement. 

The circumstance of Anne's pregnancy, however, which ap- 
peared before any negotiations had been effected, precipitated 
matters. On the twenty-fifth of January, 1533, her marriage 
was performed, as has been related above, privately in the 
palace of Whitehall. On the twenty-third of May ensuing, 



348 anne's marriage. 

the marriage of Queen Katharine was pronounced, by Cran- 
mer, void and of no effect from the beginning, and its issue 
illegitimate. On the twenty-eighth of the same month, by 
the same prelate, the marriage of Anne and Henry was de 
clared public and manifest ; and was confirmed by him, by 
his pastoral and judicial authority ; and, on the first of June, 
she was crowned, with unusual splendor, and conducted, in all 
the pomp and pageantry of the time, from Greenwich to the 
tower, as the royal Katharine had been conducted, three-and- 
twenty years before, by the same road which she was, herself, 
soon to travel on a darker errand. Miss Benger opines, that 
" although the present ceremony was perhaps not entitled to 
the same magnificence, which had been displayed on that oc- 
casion," the coronation of Katharine, "it might aspire to even 
superior elegance and taste, since its object was a woman in 
the prime of youth and beauty," &c, &c. The fair authoress, 
unfortunately, forgets that Anne Boleyn was, at the time -of 
her marriage, in her thirty-third year, while Katharine of Ar- 
ragon was but in her twenty-fifth ; that, from the accounts of 
contemporaries, more particularly Sir John Russel, one of 
Henry's privy council, who directly compares her with Anne 
Boleyn and Jane Seymour, it is very doubtful, if she were not 
equal, perhaps superior, in beauty to her successor, at the time 
of their respective marriages ; and that as to the romance of 
their antecedents, and the interest attached to each, the daugh- 
ter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the patroness of Columbus, her- 
self the nursling of the Alhambra, whose device was the pom- 
egranate of the sunny Granada, the spotless Spanish infanta 
was as far superior to the child of the picklock of princes, the 
heiress of Hever castle, the concubine and bigamous bride of a 
Wedded bridegroom, as light is to darkness, or the gorgeous 



DEATH OF MORE AND FISHER. 349 

sunshine to the twinkling of a farthing candle. On the seventh 
day of September, so unduly did the child-bed follow the nup- 
tial bedding, was born the Princess Elizabeth, to the ineffable 
disappointment of the royal parents, though she was destined, 
after strange vicissitudes of fortunes, to reign as the greatest 
queen, who ever sat on the throne of England. 

The following year was infamous for the judicial murder of 
the insane, epileptic nun, Eliza Barton, and of those most ad- 
mirable men, barbarously sacrificed — I write it with regret — 
rather to the unrelenting hatred of the new queen, than even 
to the brute rage of Henry, — More and Fisher. The latter 
had been his tutor, whom he once affected to love and revere, 
above all men ; the former had been his intimate friend, with 
whom he played practical jukes and jested, as with an equal ; 
but who so well knew the tiger, with whom he was compelled to 
play, that he once observed to his son-in-law, Roper, after 
some unusual condescension on Henry's part, that the king, 
his master, was, indeed, a very gracious master, but that, " to 
win a small castle in France, he would very readily take his 
head off his servant's shoulders." 

It is reported that, when the news arrived that More's exe- 
cution had taken place, Henry was playing at tables with Anne, 
and that, on receiving the tidings, he started up, with a "Thou 
art the cause of the death of this man," left the room, and shut 
himself up in his own apartment, in great perturbation of 
spirit. If, however, his repentance were true, it was no less 
short-lived ; it did not prevent him from reducing the inno- 
cent wife and orphan children of his victim, as nearly as it was 
in his power to do, to beggary and starvation. The pope, on 
, the 30th of August, in the succeeding year, 1535, thundered 
his anathema, against Henry and Anne, unless they should 



350 FRIAR PETTO. 

forthwith separate, and declared their issue illegitimate ; and 
her resentment at this attack led Anne to favor, in some de- 
gree, the rising party of the reformation. But, as she held to 
the doctrine of transubstantiation and to the entire ritual of 
the Romish church, it is idle to call her a Protestant. Du- 
ring her period of ascendency, moreover, Frith, Bilney, and 
many other eminent reformers, perished in the flames, without 
her making, so far as the records show, the smallest effort to 
rescue them; although, says Miss Strickland, justly, "it could 
not have been harder to save them, than to destroy her politi- 
cal adversaries." That she did favor and patronize Tindal's 
translation of the scripture and procure for it Henry's sanction, 
and that she was liberal, even to profusion, in her charities, is 
infinitely to her credit. I would willingly admit her to have 
been, as Miss Benger will have it she was, an earnest pupil 
and patroness of Latimer ; but I find that she quotes, as au- 
thority, only that very school of Protestant writers, who have 
assumed that, because she was the original cause of the schism 
of Rome, Anne was herself a Lutheran, and " a most sainted 
queen, oftener upon her knees than on her feet," — an assumption 
of no weight, whatsoever, and utterly controverted by all ascer- 
tained facts. In this year, Friar Peyto boldly preached, be- 
fore the face of Henry and his new bride, in the royal chapel, at 
Greenwich, denouncing his divorce from Katharine, and threat- 
ening that the dogs should lick his blood, as they had done that 
of Ahab ; a prophecy, which, by a curious chance, was fill 
filled, no less than that, threatening Anne with decapitation, 
in case of her supplanting Katharine. It is, perhaps, yet more 
curious, that Henry only laughed, and suppressed the monas- 
tery, without either beheading or burning the monk. About 
this time, it is certain, that a great change came over Anne's 



THE CRUELTY OF COWARDICE. 351 

conduct, and the demeanor of her court and ladies ; from this 
time, date the beautiful tapestries of Hampton Court, which, 
I think it is sufficiently authenticated, are the work of her 
hands, and of those of her maidens ; she is said, also, to have 
labored in making garments for the poor ; and this her Prot- 
estant biographers, would attribute to the influence of Latimer 
and Lutheranism. I ascribe it to the growing indifference of 
Henry, which, doubtless, was visible to his wife, who had 
watched, with interested eyes, the progress of the same feeling 
toward her predecessor ; and which she seems to have attrib- 
uted to the increasing influence of her uncle, the Duke of Nor- 
folk, at the head of the men of "the old learning," who avow- 
edly hated her, and who were anxious, as she fancied, to rein- 
state Queen Katharine in her stead, and reconstruct the church 
of the ancient religion. 

To this feeling of insecurity and apprehension, more than to 
any real cruelty, do I attribute her triumph, odious and re- 
volting as it was, at the death of Katharine. Katharine had 
never wronged her ; she could not, therefore, cherish feelings 
of resentment or hatred against Katharine. But she feared 
her. And of all passions, fear is the most cruel. She feared 
Wolsey, Fisher, More, and, fearing, she destroyed them. She 
feared even the desolate orphan, Mary, and she was a cruel 
stepmother to her. 

All cruellest of men have been cowards — Augustus, Tibe- 
rius, Nero, Hebert, Marat, Robespierre — perhaps, the reason 
why the English and the Americans are rarely, if ever, cruel, 
is because they are rarely, if ever, cowards. I believe, I hope, 
the source of Anne Boleyn's cruelty was her cowardice. 

If it were, she was mistaken. She dreaded Katharine, in 
her aguish prison-castle at Kimbolton; she overlooked the 



352 RETRIBUTION. 

treacherous handmaiden, who sat on her husband's knee, and 
kissed his lips in her own absence, by her own fireside. She 
was soon to find her out, to her despair and ruin. She was 
at the height of her hopes, she was again to be a mother ; if 
the expected heir should be granted to her prayers, her em- 
pire over her Henry was assured forever. She came suddenly 
into her private apartment, and there she found Jane Seymour, 
her own maid of honor, supplanting herself, even as she had 
supplanted Katharine. She sate in Henry's lap, caressing and 
receiving caresses. Anne burst into such an agony of hyster- 
ical paroxysms, that Henry himself was alarmed — not for the 
wretched wife of whom he was aweary, but for the unborn 
son, for which he longed with such impotent desire. He 
called her " sweetheart," he bade her " be at peace, and all 
should go well with her." But it was too late. Peace never 
again came near to her. Agony of mind brought on agony 
of body. Premature travail followed, and, after undergoing 
much anguish and infinite danger, she bore a dead son, on the 
29th of January, who, had he been born living, would have 
made her a queen indeed. But therein it was seen, how 

"this even-handed justice 
Commends the ingredients of the poisoned chalice 
To our own lips." 

No pity, no sympathy, no relic of once ardent love touched 
the cold, cruel despot. He burst furiously into his suffering 
wife's chamber, and savagely upbraided her with the loss of 
" his boy." 

Rashly and angrily, but, surely, on sufficient provocation, 
she retorted, that " the fault was his own, if he were disap- 
pointed ; for the loss of the child was all owing to her distress 
of mind, about that wench, Jane Seymour." Henry's answer 



anne's joyless pastimes. 353 

was worthy of him. Few other men were ever born capable 
of such an one. " She should have no more boys by him ; " 
he said, and banged, sullenly, out of the apartment. 

She recovered her health slowly, but she knew too well that 
her influence was at an end. " When she found," says Miss 
Strickland, but without giving her authority, " that she had no 
power to obtain the dismissal of her rival from the royal 
household, she became very melancholy, and withdrew herself 
from all the gayeties of the court, passing her time in the 
most secluded spots of Greenwich park. It is also related, 
that she would sit for hours in the quadrangle of Greenwich 
palace, in silence and abstraction, or seeking joyless pastime 
in playing with her little dogs, and setting them to fight with 
each other." What sadder scene can fancy conjure up than 
this % What thoughts, what memories, must have swept over 
that soul, once so gay and thoughtless, in those moments of 
agony 1 How little was her mind really there, with the sports 
or the quarrels of the spaniels, which she probably felt were 
the only things, now left alive, which loved her. Her original 
friend and patroness, Mary of France, the sister of He-nry, 
was no more ; her husband, Suffolk, is assumed by all the 
lady biographers of this hapless queen, to have been her en- 
emy, though I must aver, that I have found no evidence of the 
fact, but rather presumption of the reverse ; since his insult to 
Wolsey, on the refusal of that cardinal to pronounce the di- 
vorce of Katharine, savors, to say the least of it, of good will 
to Anne. The Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Thomas Howard, 
of Flodden fame, though her uncle, was notoriously hostile to 
her, as he was to all his family, who had countenanced the 
claims of the old duchess Agnes of Norfolk, in a certain fam- 

ilv feud of long standing. The Lady Rochefort her brother's 

23 



354 COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 

wife, was, it does not appear why, her deadly enemy. Even 
the gentle Surrey, the poet, the scholar, the lover of the sweet 
and graceful Geraldine, and the young Duke of Richmond, the 
king's illegitimate son, who had married Anne's cousin, the 
Lady Mary Howard, were ill-disposed toward her. Family 
feuds had broken up the family connection ; and it appears 
that, since the second marriage of Sir Thomas Boleyn, there 
had been little friendship or cordiality between his house and 
that of his first wife's relations. 

Whatever was the cause, or the nature, of her forebodings, 
they were soon proved to be too true. All the rest is horror, 
mystery, cruelty, suppression of the truth, by authority, manufac- 
tured evidence, founded on perjury, and followed by judicial 
murder. The whole is inscrutable, at this distance of time ; and 
it is useless to attempt to decide, authoritatively, in the ab- 
sence of all responsible testimony, on the guilt or innocence 
of the parties. All that can be done, is to state the facts of 
the case, the nature of the proceedings, and the adumbrations 
of suspicion, for there is, in truth, nothing stronger than this, 
on either side, by which to judge even of the probabilities of 
the question. . 

On the twenty-fourth of June, a secret committee of the 
privy council was assembled to inquire into the charges against 
the queen ; on which sate the Duke of Norfolk, her uncle, the 
Dukes of Suffolk and Richmond, her own father, the Earl of 
Northumberland, her former lover, and some of the judges. 
" It has been supposed that her father did not attend," says 
Miss Strickland ; but who supposes it, or on what grounds, 
she omits to state. It must be admitted, however, that the 
presence of these two latter noblemen, who certainly were 
friendly to Anne, on the committee, does not look like an at- 



THE EVIDENCE. 355 

tempt to pack a jury for condemnation. The committee re- 
ported, that there was cause to believe her guilty of inconti- 
nence with Brereton, Weston, Norris, the king's musician, 
Smeaton, and — what is, indeed, incredible— with her own 
brother, Eochefort, against whom the sole testimony was his 
own wife. 

What follows, becomes, at every step, more embarrassing, 
more incomprehensible ; and renders it, more and more, diffi- 
cult to form a reasonable opinion as to the guilt or innocence 
of the parties. . The incredible levity and familiarity, toward 
parties so infinitely below her station, as the king's player of 
virginals, and the. sufferance, which she gave to him and others, 
of talking to her in the loosest strain of gallantry, would argue 
strongly against Anne's chastity ; did not the open and uncon- 
scious carelessness, with which she herself detailed the conver- 
sations, render it almost impossible to believe that any woman, 
possessed of one grain of understanding, could, if guilty, have 
been mad enough so to criminate herself. 

That there existed nothing resembling legal evidence against 
her, or her alleged accomplices, may be taken for granted ; 
since, if any had existed, it would, of course, have been pro- 
duced publicly. But it must be remembered, that the rules 
of law were not enforced in those days as now — that, strong 
presumptions were, it should seem, occasionally allowed to 
weigh in absence of direct proof — and, above all, that, by a 
strange perversion of justice, the king's accusation, alone, was 
supposed to have, per se, a certain preponderance, for which 
allowance was to be made. On the other hand, it is worthy 
of remark, that not one of the men, all of whom died before 
Anne, and consequently whose assertions on the scaffold might 
have availed something to save the hapless lady's life, and 



356 CONFESSIONS IN EXTREMIS. 

would, undoubtedly, have gone far to clear her reputation, one 
of them being her own brother, accused of the most horrible 
and unnatural of crimes, said one word, either in confession or 
denial of his guilt ; unless it were Mark Smeaton, the musician, 
whose last words are susceptible of a double meaning. Again, 
Anne herself, died, and said nothing to the point, although 
Kingston, the lieutenant of the tower, expected that she would 
declare herself a good woman, for all men, but for the king. 
She, however, also died silent, either of confession or denial. 

It has been suggested that intimidation, or persuasion, might 
have been brought to bear upon the fears or the loyalty of 
the victims ; and it is asserted that a promise, not to reclaim 
against the king's justice, had been extorted from them, which 
they would not break in extremis. Those were strange times, 
I readily admit. " Henry was a marvellous man, and had 
marvellous folic about him." But I cannot give credit to 
such an absolute anomaly as this. To persons, under sen- 
tence of inevitable death, there can be, one would say, no far- 
ther intimidation, since to persons of rank, torture was inad- 
missible. To persons, wrongfully 'convicted of base and un- 
natural crimes, there could be no persuasion, or sense of loy- 
alty, so strong, as to overpower just resentment, and stifle nat- 
ural indignation. To gentlemen, and men of honor, there 
could be no stronger feeling, than the desire to rescue a beau- 
tiful, innocent, and beloved woman, from an infamous death 
and a dishonored name. 

Lastly, there is something in Henry's pertinacious, deadly, 
and insatiate rage against Anne, which makes it difficult to 
be believed, that he had no other object in view than to get 
rid of her. When Katharine died, he wept ; when he had 



DEATH OF ANNE. 357 

freed himself from his links matrimonial with " the Flanders 
mare," Anne of Cleves, he treated her as nearly like a gentle- 
man as he was capable of doing, and maintained always a 
show of decorous respect, and even of friendship, toward her ; 
when he had discovered that, in the case of the miserable 
Katharine Howard, he had been subjected to 

" The very fiend's arch mock, 
To lip a wanton and suppose her chaste," 

he would not have shed her blood, would she have allowed 
him, by confessing a precontract, to obtain a divorce, without 
proving her guilty of adultery. 

But in the case of Anne Boleyn, when either the divorce, or 
the death, would have sufficed to set him free, he must wreak 
on her the agonies of both ; he must mutilate her sweet body, 
annihilate her fair fame, declare her not merely an adulteress, 
but incestuous, and bastardize her innocent child, even while 
he admitted it to be his own — and all this, at the expense of 
so glaring an inconsistency, if he had ever stickled much for 
consistency, as the slaying a woman for adultery, alleged to 
be committed in breach of a marriage, which was declared, in 
the same breath, never to have existed at all, being null, void, 
and of no effect from the beginning. 

On the day of her murder, he donned his gayest garb, and 
sat waiting the firing of the fatal gun and the hoisting of the 
black flag, which should announce her death, on an eminence, 
in Richmond park, commanding a distant view of those "tow- 
ers of Julius, London's lasting shame," and when the signal 
shot was fired, bade them uncouple the hounds, and away ! to 
a fresher, if not a fairer bride. 

In everything save the wildest and most raving madness, there 



358 THE FIRST CHARGES. 

is some touch of method ; here, there is not a glimpse, even of 
reason. Even the tiger, when he is neither crossed nor hungered, 
ceases to slay. Even Henry VIII., though, verily, he spared 
neither man in his anger nor woman in his lust, though he reck- 
lessly crushed everything which crossed his path, which excited 
his apprehensions, provoked his wrath, or opposed itself to his 
pleasures, he never, so far as I can find, killed for the mere love 
of killing. Anne he certainly loved once, and unless, at least, 
he suspected a cause, one does not see why he should hate her 
with a hatred to be satiated only by such a vengeance, even if 
he were aweary of her. Of the rest, the reader can judge as 
well as the historian. 

On the twenty -eighth of April, the committee reported on 
the charges, and sent Brereton to the tower. Several days be- 
fore this, Anne would appear to have had some intimation of 
what was in the wind ; for she gave a solemn charge to her 
chaplain, Mathew Parker, in regard to the religious education 
of her daughter, Elizabeth, which that good man spoke of, in 
that daughter's reign, as binding him with a most solemn 
obligation. 

On the 30th — this, be it understood, on her own showing — 
when she foresaw the coming storm, she saw Mark Smeaton, 
who, for his musical skill, had been promoted to be her groom 
of the chamber, standing melancholy and musing, in one of the 
windows of her presence chamber. In this position, she went 
up to him, and asked him " why he was so sad." w It is no 
matter," he replied ; but, unless she had admitted it herself, 
no one could, believe that she would have had the incredible 
folly to say — " You may not look to have me speak to you as 
if you were a nobleman, because you be an inferior person." 
Or that he should have replied to his queen, and that queen 



THE FIRST CHARGES. 359 

Henry's, unless there had been much previous encouragement, 
" No, no, madam. A look sufficeth me." 

On May-day, there was a great jousting match at Green- 
wich, in which Rochefort was the principal challenger, and 
Henry Norris one of the defenders. The pageant was unusu- 
ally splendid, Anne being there, for the last time, in state, as 
queen, beside her savage lord. Suddenly he rose, in the midst 
of the sports, with a furious visage, left his balcony, and took 
his way homeward, attended by six confidential attendants, 
among whom was Norris, though he had been previously ar- 
rested at the barriers, for high treason, together with Roche- 
fort, and Sir Francis Weston. 

There is a tale mentioned by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
but by him disallowed, as of slight authority, to the effect, that 
the king's rage was excited by the dropping of the queen's 
kerchief into the lists, which Norris picked up, and, after wiping 
his face with it, returned on his lance's point. I discard it ut- 
terly — not because it is wholly improbable, and at variance 
with the manners of the time ; though that were cause enough. 
But because it conflicts with ascertained facts. The charges 
were before the privy council, six days before the alleged 
discovery. 

Anne remained at Greenwich, unconscious, says Miss Strick- 
land — though that can hardly be — of what had occurred, 
until the following day, when she was arrested at the din- 
ner table by Kingston, the lieutenant of the tower, and con- 
veyed to that gloomy fortress, where she was lodged in the 
apartment which she had occupied on her coronation night. 
In riding home from Greenwich, it appears that the king 
conversed apart with Norris during the whole ride, endeav- 
oring to induce him to obtain mercy, by the confession of 



360 IN THE TOWER. 

his guilt. Miss Strickland positively asserts that he denied 
it, and stoutly refused, to the end, to criminate the queen. Lin- 
gard, on the other hand, states, that on examination before the 
privy council, N orris, at the earnest solicitation of Sir William 
Fitzwilliam, did confess — of this Lord Herbert states nothing, 
nor can I discover the authority on which either statement is 
made. Smeaton, undoubtedly, did confess; but it is almost 
certain, that he did so under the rack, which could, at that 
time, be legally used on persons of his condition. 

Every illegal means were used to extort evidence, and to en- 
trap the unfortunate queen into admissions which might serve 
in lieu of testimony against her ; she was surrounded in her 
prison-house by lady spies, who impudently cross-examined 
her, and then conveyed to Cromwell the smallest word she ut- 
tered ; even her passionate exclamations of grief and broken 
interjections, were watched and noted, to be used against her. 
Thus we have no minutes of the proceedings, no notes of the 
evidence, no positive knowledge of what crime, whether adul- 
tery, or compassing the death of the king, she was found guilty, 
though it appears probable it was on the latter ground — and 
in respect of the reasons why her marriage was pronounced 
null, and of no effect from the beginning, we only know that 
the act of divorce bears in itself the record, that those reasons 
are to be taken for granted, as if they were therein recited. 
But, at the same time, we have every casual word which she 
let fall, or which was extorted from her by impertinent and 
intrusive cross-questioning, duly transmitted on the page of 
history. 

It is only clear, that she was in extreme perturbation of 
mind, now in the highest exaltation of levity, now in the depth 
of dejection, now declaring that some great calamity should 



anke's admissions. 861 

befall the country, and now that no more rain should fall in 
England, if she were put to death. Now laughing wildly, and 
jesting hysterically, but still declaring that she was a good 
woman, to all but the king, and that whoever might accuse her 
she could only say, " Nay ! nay ! nay ! and they had no wit- 
nesses." At one time she would express a childish interest in 
the prisoners, asking if " they had any one to make up their 
beds for them ; " and then again would reproach them in their 
absence, for confessing against her — N orris more especially — 
which gives some cause to believe that he did confess ; and, 
lastly, she would complain, that they should all die, together, 
on a false charge. The strongest things brought against her 
are her own admissions, to the prying ladies, who were em- 
ployed to entrap her. Mrs. Cosyns, it seems, asked her " how 
Norris had come to say, to her almoner, on last Saturday, that 
he could swear that the queen was a good woman?" "Marry," 
said Anne, " I told him to do so, for I asked him why he did 
not go on with his marriage, and he made reply, that he would 
tarry awhile. ' Then,' said I, ' you look for dead men's 
shoes, if aught but good should come to the king, you would 
look to have me.' Then he denied it, and I told him I could 
undo him, if I would; and then we fell out." In the like man- 
ner, she admitted that she had told Weston, " that he did love 
her kinswoman, Mrs. Skelton, and did not love his wife, and he 
answered her again, ' that he loved one in her house better 
than them both 1 ? ' She asked him 'who 1 ' to which he replied, 
' yourself,' when she defied him." 

It is true that this is not, legally, evidence at all ; most of 
all, not evidence of adultery; it should be, however, remem- 
bered, that the Duke of Buckingham was condemned, for com- 
passing the ki'jg's death, merely on account of words spoken, 
P 



362 anne's trial. 

much to the same effect — -between compassing and contempla 
ting, little distinction was drawn. Unless it be on Smeaton'a 
confession under the rack, it is probably on this ground that 
she was convicted, by her own admissions ; and her sentence 
" to be burnt," seems to corroborate this, such being the pen- 
alty for petty treason. 

The inferior culprits were tried first, and all sentenced ; 
Smeaton to be hanged, and the others beheaded. On the 10th 
of May, Rochefort and Anne were brought up to trial before 
twenty -three peers, selected as triers, out of the whole number 
of fifty-six, the Duke of Norfolk being lord high steward, and 
Lord Surrey, deputy earl marshal. The Earl of Northum- 
berland was one of the triers, but he was, or affected to be, 
taken ill, before the arraignment of Lord Rochefort, and was 
not present at the trial of his old love. This I do not regard 
as wearing a fair aspect for Anne's innocence. It looks as if 
he felt that he should not be able to acquit in honor ; and as if 
through feeling, he would not be present to convict. 

All that is known beyond this is, that Rochefort defended 
himself eloquently and with spirit, but was convicted on the 
evidence of his own wife, who had once seen him lean over the 
queen's bed, and kiss her. It must not be forgotten that the 
queen was his sister. On this evidence, he was convicted of 
adultery and high treason, and condemned to die. 

So soon as he was found guilty, Anne was called into court, 
held up her hand, and pleaded not guilty, without the least 
emotion. She defended herself with so much courage, wit and 
eloquence, that it was rumored, without the court, that she was 
sure of a triumphant acquittal ; but it proved not to be so. 
She, too, on what evidence we know not, was found guilty of 
what crime we know not, and was sentenced to be beheaded 



EXECUTIONS. 363 

or burnt, at the king's pleasure, receiving the decree of doom 
with unmoved dignity and spirit. 

On the 16th of May, the male prisoners all died, firmly, 
and after this -wise — Smeaton, before he was hanged, said, 
" Masters, I pray you all, pray for me ; I have deserved the 
death ; " leaving it in doubt, whether he would say for that 
crime, or for offences in general. Norris died, obstinately si- 
lent. Rochefort entreated the spectators to live according to 
the gospel ; but uttered no word in reference to the charge for 
which he came to die. Weston deplored his folly in having 
given his youth to sin, and deferred repentance to old age. 
Brereton used these words : " I have deserved to die, if it were 
a thousand deaths, but the cause wherefore I die, judge ye not. 
If ye judge, judge for the best." 

Anne was respited until the 19th, in order that she might 
give evidence before Cranmer's court — Cranmer. who had pro- 
nounced her predecessor's marriage null and void, and con- 
firmed her own, as valid, and manifestly his own authority, 
pastoral and judicial ; and who was now prepared to declare it, 
also, null from the beginning. It has never been shown what 
was the cause, admitted by Anne, which rendered her mar- 
riage void, or what induced her to make the admission, which 
deprived her daughter of the right of succession. The induce- 
ment to Anne was, it cannot, I think, be doubted, the commu- 
tation of the penalty from burning to beheading. The cause 
was not her precontract to Percy, for he had sworn before, and 
now repeated his oath, that such a precontract had never ex- 
isted. Dr. Lingard has proved to my satisfaction, beyond the 
possibility of contradiction * that it was Henry's own ante-con- 
nubial cohabitation with Mary, Anne's younger sister, though 

* See vol. vi., p. 247. End of vol. vi., note K. 



364 NULLITY OF ANNE S MARRIAGE. 

that cohabitation was illicit, which constituted his marriage 
with the elder sister incestuous. It was exactly the case of 
Katharine reversed. She, it was alleged, had lived with two 
brothers in succcession, as man and wife. And, though law- 
fully married, and by a regular dispensation obtained, her mar- 
riage was set aside as incestuous. In this case he had himself 
lived with two sisters, the first as his concubine, the second as 
his wife ; and this fact rendered his marriage with Anne, on the 
same grounds as that with Katharine, incestuous, illegal, and 
void from the beginning. 

On the nineteenth day of May, Anne came forth to die, ar- 
rayed in a dress of black damask, and, as it is said, resplen- 
dent with more than her wonted beauty. She had sent Lady 
Kingston, on the day preceding her death, to ask pardon on 
her knees of the Princess Mary, for all the wrongs she had 
ever done her ; and she had displayed such buoyant cheerful- 
ness of disposition, that she elicited from Kingston this .remark, 
in his letter to Cromwell — " I have seen many men and wo- 
men executed, and they have been in great sorrow ; and to 
my knowledge, this lady hath much joy and pleasure in her 
death." 

She did not, however, fulfill his expectation of professing 
her innocence, but, after some general confessions of unworthi- 
ness and as general praises of her cruel husband, performed 
her devotions, took leave of her ladies, gave her missal, as a 
last token, to her friend, Mistress Lee, sister of her old admi- 
rer, Sir Thomas Wyatt, who remained with her to the last, 
and then, with calm and cheerful intrepidity, gave herself up 
to the executioner. 

It had been a strange caprice of Henry, that she should be 
beheaded with a sword, and not with an axe, as usual ; and, for 



HER DEATH. 365 

that purpose, the executioner from Calais, said to be a fellow 
of rare skill in his bloody trade, had been imported, to deal 
the fatal blow. Anne, it, is said, refused a bandage ; and tra- 
dition records that the melting tenderness of her eyes disarmed 
the professional butcher, until casting off his shoes, he stole be- 
hind his fair victim, and terminated her sorrows at a single 
blow. It has been recorded by Spelman, that, when the head, 
yet bleeding, was held aloft by the executioner, the eyes and 
lips were seen to quiver, and the former to regard, with mourn- 
ful tenderness, the body from which they were so cruelly dis- 
severed ; this, however, savors of romance more than of so- 
ber truth. Her remains were thrust, with indecent haste, into 
an old oak chest, which had formerly contained arrows, and 
are said to have been interred in the tower, with no religious 
ceremonies. But Wyatt asserts, in terms which have led 
many to believe that he was himself privy to their removal, that 
they were taken thence by night and laid in hallowed earth. 
It is worthy of remark, as in some sort confirming this tale, 
that in two several churches, that of Thornden on the Hill, 
in Essex, and that of Salle, in Norfolk, both contiguous to es- 
tates, owned by Boleyns, there are two nameless slabs of black 
marble, without inscriptions or armorial bearings, under each of 
which are believed to lie all the mortal remains of the beau- 
tiful queen. The popular traditions, both of which cannot, 
neither of which may, be true, seem to indicate a concealed 
knowledge, among the vassals of the house of Boleyn, that 
the body was, in fact, abstracted from the tower, and placed 
in holy ground, though the place of interment may well have 
been concealed, or its site forgotten. 

To those who believe in true love sympathies, and deaths 
by broken hearts, it may be interesting to know, that the two 



366 THE TALE IS TOLD. 

persons who most truly loved this young and interesting wo- 
man, perhaps, the only two, who ever truly loved her, Wy- 
att and Northumberland, both followed her to the tomb within 
four little months. 

A beautiful contrast this, to the brutal, bloated tyrant, wait- 
ing, on his eager horse, with his huntsmen and his hounds 
around him, until the dull roar of the culverin, booming down 
the wind, should tell him that the lovely form, which had so 
often slept softly on his bosom, was now a mutilated mass 
of gory clay, and then, amid the blase of bugles and the bay 
of bloodhounds, the clash of spur and stirrup, and all the clang 
and clatter of the chase, away to the nuptial orgies, at Wolf 
Hall in Wiltshire, away to the more recent toy, the newer, 
not the lovelier or the younger bride, the vain and treacherous 
Jane Seymour. , 

The tale is told. Such were her charms, her graces, her 
faults, her follies — such were her sorrows and her sufferings. 
What were her sins, or if she, indeed, had any, rests between 
her and her Maker. There let it rest. I cannot pronounce 
her guilty, I 'may not declare her innocent. I will not believe 
her the former until she is proved to be so. But there is noth- 
ing to forbid the chariest to shed a tear over her memory. If 
she were innocent, she was unhappy; if guilty, she was doubly 
so. If nothing in her life became her like the leaving of it, at 
least that became her well. A tear for Anne Boleyn, 



JANE SEYMOUR. 

MAERIED, 1536; DIED, 153*7. 



The doom, 
Heaven, gives its favorites, early death. 

Btbon, ChUde Hwrold. 

This fair child of mine, 
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse. 

Shakspeaeb, Second Sonnet. 




Engrmed iy J.CJ 



." _ ' .■■■'■■■ . '. 



JANE SEYMOUR. 

BORN, 1501-7 MARRIED, 1536 DECEASED, 153?. 



The doom, 
Heaven gives its favorites, early death. 

Btron. 
This fair child of mine, 
Shall sum my count, and be my old excuse. 

Shakspeabk, 



CHAPTER VI. 



" But this queen certainly deserved all the favor done her, 
as being the discreetest, fairest, and humblest of the king's 
wives ; though both Queen Katharine in her younger days, and 
the late queen were not easily paralleled." So says Lord Her- 
bert of Cherbury, following, as his words show, the judgment 
he found expressed by others, not rendering his own. It does 
not surprise me, I confess, that Miss Strickland waxes wroth, 
at this passage, which she takes, though she misquotes it, even 
as I have taken it, for the exordium of her memoir of this 
queen's life. For it is, indeed, no easy matter to discover 
wherein lay her extreme discretion, unless it be in her conduct 
subsequent to her marriage with the king. As to her beauty, 
it is in no wise comparable to that of Anne Boleyn, or of the 
unfortunate Katharine Howard, if Holbein's picture in the 
Windsor collection, with which I am familiar, be a likeness ; 
P* 24 



.370 BLOOD OF THE SEYMOURS. 

nor to that of Katharine of Arragon, at Versailles, if it be cor 
redly described by Miss Strickland, who also mentions a far 
lovelier portrait of the Seymour in the Louvre, probably 
painted at an earlier period in life, than the Windsor likeness. 
Handsome, however, she must undoubtedly have been, for 
Henry knew well what beauty was, both in man and woman ; 
and this lady won him away from the all-admired Boleyn, who to 
beauty united wit, grace and every accomplishment ; while 
this, her successful rival, so far as one can judge, with perhaps 
the single exception of Anne of Cleves, whose only arts, like 
those of the king-maker's daughters, were to spin and to be 
chaste, was the least highly educated and refined of all the 
king's wives. 

Humble, God wot ! — as the fair Boleyn's royal daughter 
would have been apt to say — she might well be, since not only 
did she lack the casrulean blood, sangre azula, of Spain, which 
coursed in the thrice noble veins of the Arragonese infanta ; 
not only was she unable to show such hot and ' high blood as 
that which flowed from the Howards and Ormonds, through 
the arteries of the murdered Boleyn ; but, though the Sey- 
mours were unquestionably of gentle Norman origin, she could 
point to no ancestor who had ever gained historic name, nor to 
one of her own family, who had risen to higher rank in his 
own county of Wiltshire, than that of sheriff of the county, 
no one of the name having been ever returned knight of the 
shire. To compensate this, however, a fictitious pedigree was 
trumped up, by which a royal descent is claimed for Jane 
and her descendants, on the side of her mother, Margaret 
Wentworth ; inasmuch as an antique Wentworth had intermar- 
ried with a Lady Percy, daughter of Hotspur, and grand- 
daughter of Lionel, duke of Clarence. To give a color to this, 



TIME OF BIRTH. 371 

Cranmer went through the farce of granting a dispensation, 
fur nearness of kin between Henry VIII. and Jane ; though it 
is notorious that the Lady Percy in question died without is- 
sue, and that, even, had the pedigree been true, the bridegroom 
and bride would only have been cousins in the fifth degree, 
which is without the scale of prohibited affinity. 

Miss Strickland, however, who is admirable authority as to 
matters heraldic, and who has, under favor be it spoken, the 
nose of one of her own northern sleuth-hounds for a disputed 
pedigree, well observes that, if the royal kindred be doubtful, 
the plebeian blood is not so. For it is undeniable, that, by 
this alliance, the sovereign of England gained one brother-in- 
law, whose name was Smith, and another whose grandfather 
was, actually, a blacksmith at Putney — Jane's sister, Eliza- 
beth, had married the son of the minister, Cromwell, whose 
origin was well known ; and her sister, Dorothy, was the wife 
of Sir Clement Smith, of Little Baddow, in Essex. 

Whether the Seymours had cause to be humble or no, it is 
very clear to me that the Smiths had cause to be proud of 
this alliance ; their name was manfestly in the ascendant. 

Jane Seymour was the eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour 
of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire ; she was almost exactly of the same 
age as Anne Boleyn, which I have set down, at the head of 
her life, as dating variously from 1501 to 1507. This I have 
done, because both years are assigned to her birth, by writers 
of credit, though I doubt not, in the least, for reasons rendered 
in the text, that the earlier is the correct time, and that Anne 
was at least thirty-two, when she was married, if not in her 
thirty-third year, and thirty-six at the time of her decapitation. 
Jane is unanimously allowed to have been the eldest daughter 
of her father, who had eight children, one of whom, a son, 



372 PICTURES OF THE MAIDS OF HONOR. 

younger consequently than Jane, was one of the children of 
honor to Mary of England, when Anne Boleyn accompanied 
that princess to France. 

She could not, therefore, have been much younger than 
Anne, who, it will be remembered, was but fourteen, at the 
time of her going abroad. Miss Strickland produces plausible 
reasons for believing that, although in the first instance Jane 
was not maid of honor to Mary, she was probably herself in 
the train, and one of those younger girls who were permitted 
to remain, when the elder attendants were dismissed ; and 
that she was subsequently promoted to the same rank with 
Anne. Her reasons for this conjecture are more than con- 
jectural ; the picture, above alluded to, in the Louvre, which 
our authoress confidently affirms, from its likeness to the more 
youthful English portraits of Jane, which are well ascertained 
to be no other than this lady, is entitled, in the French gallery, 
" Maid of honor to Marie dAngleterre, queen of Louis XII." 
It hangs, moreover, as a pendant to a magnificent full length 
portrait of Anne Boleyn, likewise entitled, " Maid of honor to 
the queen of Louis XII." " These two well known portraits," 
she adds, " are clad in the same costume, though varied in or- 
naments and color. They are not now recognized in France 
as queens of England, but as companion suivantes of an En- 
glish princess, queen of France." It represents a beautiful, full- 
formed woman of nineteen or twenty. 

It may be added, that the English portraits of Queen Jane 
Seymour, which appear to represent a faded and delicate vale- 
tudinarian of three or four-and-thirty, have enough of the char- 
acter of the younger heads, to satisfy any observer of the iden- 
tity of the persons delineated. 

Of no person, probably, who afterward became queen of 



TRADITIONARY STORY. 373 

England is so little known, as of this most fortunate of Henry's 
wives — most fortunate, perhaps, because so little is known. It 
cannot even be ascertained, how she became, in the first in- 
stance, Anne's maid of honor. It is not improbable, that she 
came to her, as an appendage to the crown, from her own sup- 
planted predecessor ; that she entered Katharine's service with 
her, on their return from France ; and learned, from observa- 
tion of her own manoeuvres, the art of supplanting queens in 
the affection of their lords. 

I am not prone to take things for granted in history, or to 
presume possibilities into probabilities, and then assume prob- 
abilities as facts. But in (his case, the coincidence of ages, of 
the pictures of the maids of honor to the same French queen, 
and the conjuncture of the same two women, as successive maids 
of honor in the English court, appear to justify a little stretch 
of the imagination. For all that we positively know of Jane 
Seymour, her first appearance on the historic stage is at the 
moment when she is found sitting on Henry's knee, utterly 
regardless of all the decencies and delicacies, which one would 
expect to find in a young woman of gentle blood and nature, 
yet not so young withal, as to be ignorant of the proprieties of 
the world. 

How far her indecorous conduct was carried, we have no 
means of knowing. Its duration was probably not long ; for 
the effect of the discovery of her vileuess on Anne's unborn 
offspring, and consequently on Anne's hold on the king's af- 
fections, gave her the victory at once. There is a story, tra- 
ditionally told by both Miss Aiken and Miss Strickland, 
though admitted to rest on no authority, that Anne first dis- 
covered the intrigue of her maid with her husband, from de- 
tecting a miniature of the king hanging about her neck ; but 



374 THE CAUSES OF HER GOOD REPORT. 

this I discard, as I did, in the life of Anne Boleyn, the legend 
of the discovery of her guilt by the dropping of her kerchief 
in the lists at Greenwich, because it manifestly conflicts with 
ascertained facts. If Anne had been aware that there were 
love passages between Henry and Jane, she would not have 
been surprised, or thrown into hysterical paroxysms and pre- 
mature labor by finding the maid of honor sitting on his knee. 
■ It was the first shock of knowing herself supplanted, and the 
perfect certainty of what was to follow, that overcame her. 
The first suspicion awakened, the rest follows, of course ; and 
Anne had doubtless sat many times too often on Henry's 
knee herself, while Katharine was queen, to doubt that such 
was the natural, if not the necessary, consequence, of once ad- 
mitting his addresses. 

How long after the disgraceful discovery Jane remained at 
court, is nowhere told, but long enough beyond doubt to wit- 
ness the ruin of her unhappy rival's last hope, for we know that, 
after her tedious convalescence, there was a struggle on Anne's 
part to procure the dismissal of her enemy ; but, that failing, 
she fell into a stupor of despondency, from which she was 
aroused only by the crash of all her earthly fortunes. It is 
like, if the whole scene were told us out truly, as it is of Kath- 
arine's and Anne's matters, we might find that, when Boleyn 
retired to her premature accouchement, Jane took her place at 
Henry's banqueting board and council table. 

But it is Jane's especial good fortune, that she alone, of all 
Henry's queens, was neither adopted, nor attacked, by either 
of the belligerent religions. The whole hatred of the Roman- 
ists was concentrated against the unhappy Anne, whom they 
regarded as the personal enemy of Katharine, the most Cath- 
olic, and as the head and front of the English schism. The 



JANE S UNCHASTITY. 375 

extreme reformers, on the other hand, never rallied under 
Anne's party, which they did zealously and fanatically under 
that of Jane's son, Edward VI., who may be regarded as al- 
most a Puritan king; so that, when Jane was dead and gone, 
they regarded her only as the mother of their Protestant king ; 
while the Romanists equally upheld her, for her comparative 
kindness to Mary, the daughter of Katharine. The conse- 
quence is, that during her life the party of the Anglican church 
upheld her, because she was of their communion; the Romish 
church supported her, because she had overthrown their arch- 
enemy, Anne ; and neither kept any watch on her proceed- 
ings, or took any heed of her short comings and transgressions. 
After she was dead, all parties, most causelessly, most un- 
justly, combined to glorify her. Before her marriage to the 
king, her conduct was the most heartless and cruel, and far 
from the least unchaste of that of any one of his least reputa- 
ble queens ; afterward, she was a mere passive, negative doll 
— a beautiful doll, probably, for, if not for her beauty, heaven 
knows there was nothing else for which Henry should have 
chosen her — but a most uninteresting, cold-blooded woman, and 
a most faineante queen. 

I say she was not the least unchaste of his least reputable 
queens ; and I say so, advisedly. I do not mean to say, posi- 
tively, that she was the mistress of Henry, before her marriage 
with him, as Anne Boleyn was; or the mistress of some one else, 
before her marriage with Henry, as Katharine Howard was; but 
I do mean to say, that, as to her real chastity, it does not matter 
a pin's fee whether she was or was not. The girl, who will sit 
on the knee, and submit to the caresses of a married man, with 
the avowed intent of seducing him from his affection and fealty 
to his lawful wife, is capable of anything ; and, to my thinking, 



376 jane's weddtng. 

is unchaste, though, from coldness of temperament, or caution, 
she may have preserved her person as unstained as that of 
Diana. Indeed, I can readily imagine one, who has fallen to 
the arts of the seducer, loving not wisely but too well, chaster 
and purer in soul, than she who, seducer herself, has kept a 
polluted mind in an unpolluted body.") But the subject is an 
odious one, at best ; almost as odious as " the discreetest, fair- 
est, humblest wife" of the defender of the faith. 

How long she tarried at the court, as I have said, is not to 
be ascertained ; perhaps, she attended the queen in the bal- 
cony, during those fatal jousts at Greenwich ; perhaps she was 
one of the ladies, who waited in silence round the dinner table, 
unwilling to be the first to disclose the horrid tidings, which they 
were not all unwilling to see arrive, while the fated sovereign 
wondered why the king's waiter came not, with his wonted 
compliment, " much good may it do you," until the surnap 
was removed, and Kingston and the cruel Duke of Norfolk 
came to remove her to the tower. 

But she wag not at the court, when the doom was pro- 
nounced, when the two-handed broadsword flashed, and the 
beautiful head fell. She was not at the court then. But it 
was from no sympathy, no pity, no delicacy of mind, no ten- 
derness of heart. No ! it was not, even, from the natural de- 
cency, which the vilest woman would assume, if she had it not. 
No ! she was at her father's seat of Wolf Hall, in Wiltshire, 
fashioning the snowy robe, embroidering the bridal veil, 
wreathing the orange crown, mixing the bride-cake, drawing 
the marriage wine, red as the blood which must flow from an- 
other lovely woman's veins, before that festive draught can go 
round among the shouting company ; and all that, while the 
heart was yet alive and warm and palpitating in untold agony, 



WOLF HALL. 377 

which must cease to beat, ere her happiness could be consum- 
mated. Atrocious, odious, abominable, as is the character of 
that detestable man and king, to me it seems gentle, genial, 
and commendable, as compared with that of the heartless, un- 
sexed woman, who waited in her well named abode — it should 
have been a Wolf Hall truly to afford a den to so true a she 
wolf — with eager eyes and panting heart, for the coming of 
the bloody-souled, if not bloody-handed, newly made widower, 
who should make her the murderous bride of a murderer. 

Such was " the discreet, fair, humble queen," whom Prot- 
estant and Papist have vied with one another who should 
praise the most fulsomely — of whom, historian after historian 
has repeated the glib, parrot-story — whom American women, 
when they read the loathsome narrative of her ascent through 
deceit, lust, and blood, to royal eminence, are taught to regard 
as modest, virtuous, meritorious, and, for aught that I know, 
worthy of imitation. 

One portion only of the legend must needs be false. It is 
that, which tells us, that after awaiting the booming of the 
noonday gun, telling of the perpetrated murder, either in Ep- 
ping chase, or in Richmond park, for, in both localities, tradi- 
tion points to the exact oak tree under which he stood, Henry 
rode, that same night, to Wolf Hall, in Wiltshire, and was 
wedded on the following morning. If it be true that he waited 
in either place, it must necessarily have been at Richmond, 
which is nine miles on the route toward Wiltshire ; while 
Epping chase lies thirteen in a diametrically opposite direc- 
tion. Still, Winchester stands sixty-three miles south-west of 
London, while Tottenham park and Wolf Hall cannot be less 
than ten or fifteen farther, the whole making a distance, which, 
even now, with the advantage of the excellent roads of tb.Q 



S78 THE WEDDING DAY. 

nineteenth century, it would be difficult to find a horse to cover, 
between sunrise and sunset, especially with twenty stone 
weight, or upward, on his back, — and Henry, measuring six 
feet four inches in height, and more than obese in proportion, 
could not have possibly weighed less. As roads were, in those 
days, and the state of the country in general, even with relays 
of horses, it would have been good travelling, to a man of 
Henry's weight and age, if he accomplished it on the second 
evening, after starting from Richmond at mid-day; and accord- 
ingly we find it stated by Lord Herbert, that there were two 
stories in vogue, one, which represented the marriage as oc- 
curring on the next, and the other, more consistently, on the 
third day following Anne's execution. Yet there is something 
peculiar in the story, as has been pointed out in Fisher's gen- 
ealogical history of England* namely, that the nineteenth of 
May, in 1536, fell on Friday, and Saturday, the twentieth, was 
the day before Rogation Sunday ; so that, it the wedding 
were not performed on that day, it could not have taken place 
until after Whitsuntide. Now the marriage did take place before 
Whitsuntide ; for the bride was presented in London at that 
time to the citizens, and the wedding festivities were mingled 
with the rejoicings usual on that day. The ceremony certainly, 
therefore, was performed on the twentieth day of May, in Tot- 
tenham church; the bridal party partook of a splendid banquet 
served up in a detached building at Wolf Hall, which is yet 
entire, and, after dinner they proceeded to Marwell, near Win- 
chester, where the chamber is still shown in which the newly 
married couple passed the night. 

The only solution of the difficulty is, if Anne were not exe- 
cuted until twelve o'clock on the nineteenth, that Henry, in 

* Quoted by Miss Strickland, iv. 210. 



SUBSERVIENCY TO THE KING. 379 

his furious eagerness, must have ridden through the livelong 
night, by aid of relays posted, in advance, along the road, and 
reached Wolf Hall on the morning of the 20th, in time to 
celebrate his wedding. A great feat, indeed, for a man, 
then in his forty-fifth year, of luxurious habits, and gigantic 
frame, who had already been noticed, at his second interview 
with Francis of France, to have become too unwieldy and 
obese to take part any longer in his once favorite pursuits of 
the tilt-yard and the tournay; and one which shows how 
strong and resolute was his will, when once fairly aroused, and 
how puissant his frame, even in its impaired condition, to meet 
every tax, which he chose to impose on it. Several members 
of the privy council, it seems, were present at the marriage, 
which was performed in church, as is evident from the follow- 
ing passage, as also at the feast that followed it ; for Lord Her- 
bert, speaking of the wedding, says, " Concerning the ceremony 
whereof, as well as the opinion held in those times of the differ- 
ent perfections of the king, and his two queens, I shall out of 
our records produce the censure of Sir John Russel, afterward 
earl of Bedford, who, having been at church, observed the 
king to be the goodliest person there ; but of the two queens 
gave this note, that the richer Queen Jane was in clothes, the 
fairer she appeared, but that the other, the richer she was ap- 
parelled, the worse she looked." 

The strange and disgraceful subserviency to this monster 
king, of his parliaments, is well shown in the addresses pre- 
sented on his marriage, by the two houses, and the new act, 
by which the succession was vested in the heirs of the body 
of Queen Jane, " whose age and fine form give promise of 
issue," Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne being declared illegiti- 
mate, just as Mary had been, previously, on Anne's elevation. 



380 PARLIAMENTARY FLATTERIES. 

The speaker, chosen by this precious house of commons, was 
Solicitor-general Eich, the perjured caitiff who had sworn away 
the life of Sir Thomas More, and who now unblushingly com- 
pared the bloated tyrant " for strength and fortitude, to Sam- 
son, for justice and prudence, to Solomon, and for beauty and 
comeliness, to Absalom." 

" Thus did the English senate," observes the lady, from 
whom I have so often quoted, " condescend to encourage 
Henry in his vices, calling his self-indulgence, self-denial, and 
all his evil, good ; inflating his wicked willfulness with eulogy, 
till he actually forgot, according to Wolsey's solemn warning, 
' that there was both heaven and hell.' While the biographer is 
appalled, as the domestic features of this moral monster are un- 
veiled, surely some abhorrence is due to the union of atrocities 
that met in the heads and the hearts of his advisers and flatterers." 

A curious testimony of the circumstances of this act of ab- 
horrent treachery and domestic wickedness exists in the dedica 
tion to Coverdale's bible, printed in Zurich, in 1535. In the 
preface to this work, the names of Henry and his queen were 
to be mentioned with eulogy, as reforming princes, but the 
hapless Anne having been sacrificed, and Jane Seymour set 
in her place, while the sheets were going through the press, 
an attempt has been made to reconcile the error by the in- 
terlineation of a J above the word Anne, as often as it occurs 
in the text. Oddly enough, this is not the only instance of 
ex post facto alterations of printed forms, which occurs in this 
reign. When Anne was brought to bed of Elizabeth, so con- 
fident were the king and his council that the royal will could 
control that of heaven, that an instrument was actually pre- 
pared and printed, beforehand, announcing the birth of a prince. 
When the child appeared, and proved to be a girl, the gender 



THE BOOTLESS REIGN. 381 

had to be altered in the text ; and, there not being room for 
two letters, a single s was interpolated, making the queen to 
be delivered of a princes; whence some authors have fallen 
into the error of imagining that Anne Boleyn gave birth to a 
male heir, who died, before Elizabeth. 

There is hardly a fact, worthy of commemoration, recorded 
of the brief reign of this Jane, who has been described as a para- 
gon of human virtues ; the only direct document of her queen- 
ship, which has been preserved, is an order to the park-keeper 
at Havering at the Bower, to deliver " two bucks in high sea- 
son " to certain gentlemen named ; and this instrument, as au- 
thority to which she cites the king's warrant and seal, is signed, 
in a sprawling, awkward manuscript, " Jane the Quene." The 
only act of kindness or charity, which can be quoted in her fa- 
vor, is her reception of the young Princess Mary, at Green- 
wich palace, during the Christmas rejoicings of 1537. Yet 
the hard terms on which this unhappy child was readmitted to 
her father's partial favor, only after confessing under her own 
hand, her own illegitimacy, and the unlawfulness of her moth- 
er's marriage, and making the most abject submission for her 
past undutifulness, speaks little either for the kindness of this 
queen's heart, or the potency, if it Avere honest, of her inter- 
cession with the king. 

Her only known grief was caused by the death of her father, 
in the sixtieth year of his age, at the height of honors and am- 
bition, leaving his eldest daughter queen, and his eldest son, 
created Earl of Beauchamp, and appointed for life lord-cham- 
berlain of England ; and how much she was grieved at this 
event, or how far consoled by the wealth and honors, which 
flowed in upon her family, from every quarter, is not to be 
discovered. 



382 SENTENCE OF A DEAD SAINT. 

We learn, also, that the winter was a severe one, and that 
the queen, with her husband and all his court, crossed the 
Thames to Greenwich, on horseback, on the ice. In the fol- 
lowing spring, the royal pair made a progress to Canterbury, 
not, one may be sure, on a pious pilgrimage to the shrine of 
St. Thomas a Becket, though that saint was concerned in the 
matter. It will not be forgotten, that, when Henry was busy 
reforming abuses and abolishing shrines, this rebellious saint, 
who had been dead three centuries, or thereabouts, was cited 
into court to show cause why he should not be found guilty of 
sedition against his royal master, Henry II. The saint, not 
appearing, he was allowed thirty days, in which to make his 
appearance in person, or by proxy; that being, it must be pre- 
sumed, the ascertained period in which the journey may be 
made between earth and Paradise — for we cannot suppose a 
saint to have had any other abiding place ; and, failing to do 
this, he was condemned to forfeit all his worldly goods to the 
king, and to have his bones burned, as a public admonition to 
future saints, in expectancy, to pay due respect to kings. The 
latter portion of the sentence was, of course, duly executed ; 
but Henry seems to have imagined that there was some trick- 
ery on the part of the saint, that the worldly goods had not all 
been duly handed over. Perhaps, the saint had made them 
over to some brother or sister saint, in order to cheat his ma- 
jesty's exchequer. At all events, it was a matter, evidently, 
worth looking after ; and it appears, that it was to no small 
purpose, that Henry did look after it ; for he ever after wore, 
as a thumb ring, the magnificent diamond, presented to St. 
Thomas by King Lewis VII., and known by the pilgrims to 
the time-honored shrine of the martyred bishop, as ' ; the Lustre 
of France." 



BIRTH OF PRINCE EDWARD. 383 

On his return from this progress, Henry, it seems, was de- 
sirous that, as both his former wives had enjoyed gorgeous 
coronations, though they had both been afterward discrowned, 
his present wife should not lack, at least, the former distinc- 
tion ; but, in the first place, the plague, which raged at West- 
minster, intervened ; then, the birth of Prince Edward oppo- 
sed farther delay ; and, lastly, the greatest of mortal mon- 
archs, King Death, took the matter into his own hand, and deter- 
mined by that decision, from which there lies no appeal, that 
the fair Jane Seymour should be neither crowned, nor dis- 
crowned, by any fingers but his own. 

It was on the sixteenth of September, 1587, that Queen Jane, 
according to the ceremonial then in use with English queens, 
took to her chamber at Hampton court, one month previous 
to the expected event, during the whole of which time she was 
not permitted to quit her apartment, and was waited on by 
ladies only. On the 12th of October, after terrible sufferings, 
during which the queen's attendants put the cruel question to 
Henry, "Whether he would desire, saved, if to save both 
should prove impossible, his wife or the child," she was deliv- 
ered of a prince, on Friday, the vigil of St. Edward's eve. 
The question having been put, as it doubtless was — for such is 
the rule in the case, at least of royal accouchements, and the 
writer well remembers that it was put in the instance of the 
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, though, in that instance, 
answered on the christian view of the subject, but in vain — 
there can be no doubt that Henry did reply, as he is said to 
have replied — "The child, by all means. Other wives can 
be found easily." To have made the other choice was not in 
Henry's nature. The child, however, survived, without re- 
course to the dreadful alternative, to inherit his mother's beauty, 



384 CHRISTENING OF EDWARD. 

and especially her starry eyes — to inherit, I think, something 
of her character, for he seems from childhood to have been 
cold, formal, narrow-minded, and in spite of his after admira- 
ble education by Henry's last and most excellent wife, Kath- 
arine Parr, to have had but a narrow share either of heart or 
intellect. 

The queen, with ordinary care, might have recovered and 
survived ; but, whom the agonies and perils of child-birth had 
spared, the christening festivities destroyed. The boisterous 
king was furious and brutal in his joy, as he was in his rage, 
in his tenderness, in all things. The court, at his beck, bid- 
ding, and example, went mad. Revelry waxed into riot, and 
riot roared through the palace. The ceremony took place on 
the Monday after the birth, and the faint queen was forced to 
rise from her bed, to lie on a state pallet, and play her part 
in the pageant, which proceeded from her very chamber. 

Never was seen such a procession — never in any procession 
were such persons brought togethei-. The sponsors were the 
Princess Mary, Cranmer, and the Duke of Norfolk. The in- 
fant Elizabeth, borne aloft in the arms of the arrogant and am- 
bitious Seymour, the queen's brother, carried in her baby 
hands the crimson, for the son of her, to make whom queen 
she was herself made motherless and bastardized ; and the 
Earl of Wiltshire, the father of the murdered Boleyn, assisted 
at the rite, a weak, white-headed dotard. Of these persons, 
Mary, the first sponsor, succeeding her brother, the first Prot- 
estant defender of the faith, for whom she that evening re- 
sponded, among the cruellest deeds of her cruel Romish reign, 
consigned to the stake and fagot one of her associates, Cran- 
mer, in that solemn, christian rite ; the other, the Duke of 
Norfolk, who narrowly escaped his own bloody doom by 



jane Seymour's death. 385 

Henry's timely death alone, being his prosecutor and deadli- 
est enemy. Elizabeth, destined to be the most puissant of 
English queens, and to efface by the glories of her reign the 
dark and doleful memories of her mother, was led back in the 
returning procession, by her sister Mary ; her train borne by 
the Lady Herbert, sister of yet a future queen of England, 
Katharine Parr — both disinherited, both illegitimated, both to 
wear the crown of England, the one under the bloodiest, the 
other under the bravest and brightest auspices. 

What a leaf was there to be read in the book of fate, turned 
at that christening, if any had been there endowed with lore 
to read it. 

After the ceremonial, which lasted until midnight — during 
the whole duration of which time the king sat revelling and 
rollicking, in his great content, by the side of the sick queen's 
pallet, killing her, while he was designing in the rude style of 
his rough tenderness to cheer her — the royal child was borne 
back to the chamber, with trumpets braying, kettle-drums 
booming, and heralds bellowing the proclamation of the new- 
born infant's titles, to receive his mother's blessing. 

It is no wonder that, on the Wednesday ensuing, the mother 
was so ill that it was held necessary to administer the sacra- 
ment to her. Still she died not yet, as some writers have sup- 
posed, but survived a fortnight ; finally, and it is like fortu- 
nately for herself, departing this life at Hampton Court, on 
the 28th day of October, the only one of Henry's six wives, 
who died a queen, the only one who bore him an heir male, 
and the last who bore him a child, though she had three suc- 
cessors in her perilous state. 

She received a splendid funeral, and was buried in great 
pomp, Mary officiating as chief mourner to her friendly step- 
Q 25 



386 THE MONUMENTS OF QUEENS. 

mother, in St. George's chapel, at Windsor, where, on her 
tomb, was engraved the following epitaph, in allusion to her- 
self and to Prince Edward, who sprang from her decease : 

" Phoenix Jana jacet, nato Phcenice, dolendum, 
Ssecula pbcenices nulla tulisse duos." 

"Here a phoenix lieth, whose death 
To another phoenix gave breath. 
It is to be lamented much 
The world at once ne'er knew two such." 

Henry wrote a characteristic letter to Francis, on this event, 
deploring the death, and exulting at the birth, but confessing 
that the latter gave him far more joy, than did the former 
grief. He failed, however, in no mark of respect to her mem- 
ory, causing his whole court to wear mourning for her, even 
during the holidays of the ensuing Christmas — no slight trib- 
ute when it is considered how utterly he abhorred the sight of 
black, which he believed ominous of evil, for devoid as he was 
of all mercy, humanity, or grace, he was, by no means, want- 
ing in superstition. 

It is remarkable, that in his last will the king commanded 
that the bones of his "loving queen Jane," in her quality, 
doubtless, of mother to the future king, should be laid in his 
own tomb ; and his orders were obeyed, for' when George IV. 
caused the vaults of Windsor chapel to be searched, for the 
corpse of Charles II., the coffin of Queen Jane lay, side by 
side, with the gigantic skeleton of Henry VIII., which some 
previous accident had exposed to view.* " He likewise left 
directions for a magnificent monument to their mutual memo- 
ries, which, he intended, should be erected in Windsor chapel. 
Both their statues were to be placed on the tomb ; the effigy 

* Miss Strickland, vol. vi. 224 



MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES. 387 

of Jane was to recline, not as in death, but as one sweetly 
sleeping ; children were to sit at the corners of this tomb, 
having baskets of roses, white and red, made of fine, oriental 
stones — jasper, cornelian, and agate, 'which they shall shew 
to take in their hands and cast them down, on, and over the 
tomb, and down on the pavement ; and the roses they shall 
cast over the tomb shall be enamelled and gilt, and the 
roses they cast on the steps and pavement shall be formed of 
the said fine, oriental stones, and some shall be inlaid on the 
pavement.' " 

The beautiful design, though directed by Henry's own sign 
manual, was never executed ; it was begun, indeed, but never 
finished ; and the materials are said to have been stolen du- 
ring the civil wars. 

But the monument — which he stated he would have to Queen 
Katharine's memory, which should be " one of the goodliest 
monuments in Christendom," the beautiful abbey -church of 
Peterborough, namely, spared from the common destruction 
that befell all monasteries, because it covers her remains — sur- 
vived the bai'barous iconoclasm of Ireton, Brooke, and Pe- 
ters in the seventeenth century, and still stands — though the 
actual place of her interment is unmarked save by a small 
brass plate — the actual monument of that most royal and mag- 
nificent of all his royal consorts. 

Thus, it is shown, in one more instance, that whatever man 
may propose, it is God only who disposes ; and that, plan and 
purpose as we may, the plans and purposes will turn only to 
the final end, which he has predetermined. 



ANNE OF CLEYES. 

MARRIED, 1540; REPUDIATED, 1540. 



In such a business, give me leave to use 
The help of mine own eyes. 

I cannot love her, nor will strive to try. 

Shakspeare. AW s Well that Ends 



AME OF CLEV.ES. 

BORN, SEPTEMBER 22, 1516; MARRIED, 1540 J REPUDIATED, 1540. 



In such a business, give me leave to use 
The help of mine own eyes. 

I cannot love her, nor will strive to try. 

Shakspbaee. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Among the many principalities, which existed of old, sup- 
porting distinct populations, and governed by noble, brave, 
and warlike princes, which at the end of the great Napoleonic 
war, in 1815, were merged in the larger empires, one among 
the most considerable of the lesser German powers, was the 
duchy of Cleves, which, with its dependencies of Berg, the 
county of Mark, Ravensburgh, Juliers, and Ravenstein, was 
ruled by a line of hereditary princes, who, in the reign of 
Henry VIII., lacked neither dignity, influence, nor importance, 
among the European sovereigns of the time. It has since, 
with all its subordinate possessions, been absorbed by Prussia. 

The ruling monarch of these principalities, who had in fact 
united them, himself, for the first time, into one government, 
by his marriage with Maria, the heiress of William, duke of 
Juliers, Berg, and Ravenstein, was John, surnamed the Paci- 



392 HENRY A WIDOWER. 

ficator, who had succeeded his father, John the Clement, in 
1521. 

He was a politic and powerful prince ; he was closely 
connected with that potent confederacy of German princes, 
known in history as the Smalcaldic league, whereof that he- 
roic prince, John Frederic, duke of Saxony, who had married 
Sibylla, his eldest daughter, was the most distinguished chief 
and leader. This Princess Sibylla, late of Cleves, now of 
Saxony, was one of the most meritorious and renowned ladies 
of her age in Europe, equally noted for her great beauty, her 
unusual talents, and her high spirit. This princess had two 
sisters, Anne and Amelia of Cleves, both her juniors, and both 
said greatly to resemble her in their physical and mental qual- 
ifications. 

John of Cleves, the Pacificator, was a reformer and a Lu 
theran, and his son-in-law of Saxony, " for his invincible adhe- 
rence to his principles, and his courage in adversity, was sur- 
named the Lion of the Reformation." 

After the death of his third wife, Jane Seymour, Henry VIII., 
who was, one would say, never contented, either with a wife while 
he had one, or without one when a widower, immediately began 
to cast about his eyes for another consort ; and having, now, ta- 
ken into his head that a French lady would suit his tastes, 
which, to do him justice, were, at least, more refined than his 
temper, he applied to his friend, Francis the First, to aid him 
to the object of his wishes. Francis, it seems, made some 
general complimentary reply, to the effect that there was no 
single lady in the kingdom, who would not hold herself hon- 
ored by the offer of his hand ; whereupon, the literal-minded 
Englishman coolly requested him to send down a batch of the 
handsomest women of his court to Calais for inspection. 



MARIE OF LORRAINE. 393 

Francis, of course, declined the offer, saying that it was im- 
possible to trot noble ladies out, like horses at a fair, and to 
pick them for their shapes and paces. But this strange man 
was not to be put off easily. He had fallen in love, or, what 
is the same thing, imagined he had fallen in love with the 
lovely Marie of Lorraine, dowager duchess of Longueville ; 
and, though he was distinctly informed that he could not have 
her, since she was betrothed to his nephew, James of Scotland, 
he, in perfect consistency with his temper, only became the 
more pertinacious, from the opposition. At last, Chatillon, 
the French ambassador at the court of London, who was at 
times entertained, at times worried, by his persistence, asked 
him, as he informs his sovereign and employer, " whether he 
would marry the wife of another." To which he made an- 
swer that " he knew she had not passed her word yet, and 
that he would do ten times as much for Francis, as the king 
of Scots could do." When this project of alliance fell 
through, owing to Madame de Longueville's actual marriage 
with James, an union with that lady's handsome sister, or with 
Mademoiselle de Vendome, was suggested to him, when he 
instantly recurred to his first idea of personal inspection. Cha- 
tillon hinted that he could send some one to look at them for 
him, — " Pardie," replied he, " how can I depend on any one 
except myself? " — besides, he said, he wanted to see them, 
and especially to see them sing. It is known, that he was an 
enthusiastic and skillful musician and amateur, and passion- 
ately fond of music ; but it seems, by this, that his love of 
sweet sounds could not overpower his love for handsome faces; 
and that it was as indispensable in his ideas that the lady of 
his love should look pretty while she was singing, as that she 
should be a proficient in that art. 
Q* 



394 THE FRENCH LADIES. 

At length, reluctantly enough, as it appears, finding that he 
could do nothing with Chatillon, nor by any means get a chance 
of a reenactment of the judgment of Paris, with his own hand, 
in lieu of an apple of gold, as the detur pulcherrimce of the la- 
dies of France, he gave up the idea of a queen from that land 
of grace and refinement. 

It must not be forgotten, as it is absolutely necessary for 
understanding the history of the times, that England was at 
this time divided into two, or, one may say, three great reli- 
gious parties ; on the ascendency of the one or other of which, 
all the politics of the time depended, and according to the suc- 
cessive alternations of which the alliances and foreign policy 
of the country alternated. The first of these was the old Ro- 
mish party, sustained by many of the noblest families of the 
peerage, especially in the north country, where to this day that 
creed prevails more largely than elsewhere in the realm, with 
the Howards, Percys, Cliffords, and other great names at their 
head. These looked for nothing less than a return to the old 
order of things, a reconciliation with the pontiff, and the res- 
toration of Roman authority in England. The second was the 
court, or Anglican church party, which, adhering to all the doc- 
trines and traditions, and using the ritual of Rome, objected to 
the foreign supremacy, and approved of the English system as 
established by Henry, without 'desiring any farther reforms, 
or countenancing the Lutheran innovations. The third were 
the true Protestant reformers, whether Wickliffites or Lu- 
therans, who were afterward termed Puritans, and who, though 
neither in this nor any succeeding reign, except the short one 
of Edward VI., did they dare to avow their principles openly, 
were yet a powerful and increasing body, especially among the 
middle classes. It was, in fact, the weight of this secret organ- 



POLEMICAL PARTIES. 395 

ization. that secured the establishment of Henry's church, with 
a view to the introduction, as occasion should serve, of yet 
farther reforms. This latter party, of which Latimer and, se- 
cretly, Cranmer, were the leaders, though often persecuted by 
the Anglican party, always made common cause with them 
against the Papists, the common enemies of both, and, when 
the Anglicans needed their support, were aided by them. 

From the beginning to the close of Henry's reign, it was a 
struggle between these parties, and also between the Roman- 
ists and Reformers on the continent, which should possess the 
king's ear by means of his wife ; and we constantly find that, 
when he chanced to be a widower, either party used every ex- 
ertion to find him a helpmate of its own persuasion ; and when 
he had a wife, that party to which she did not belong, had re- 
course to every method, however cowardly or wicked, to de- 
throne and destroy her. This strange warfare waged by reli- 
gious sects, with royal wives for their weapons, began with 
the cruel injustice done to Katharine of Arragon, which the 
Romanists vainly resented and resisted. Frustrated by the 
elevation of Anne Boleyn, they had materially contributed to 
her fall, if, indeed, they did not plan and execute it. Under 
the passive reign of the cipher, Jane Seymour, who had no re- 
ligion, or any, just as her husband might desire, both parties 
remained inactive, both flattering and praising the power that 
was at least harmless, and preferring the rule of queen log, to 
that of queen stork, in spite of creed or church. 

When Jane departed this life, and the king's hand was again 
in the market, the struggle recommenced, and it soon appeared 
that fortune favored the Reformers. The inability of Henry 
to obtain a French queen, and the unwillingness shown by 
most of the ladies of the European courts — Spain being en- 



396 THE SMALCALDIC LEAGUE. 

tirely out of the question, in consequence of the alienation of 
the princes— to enter into any alliance with a king, who was 
generally believed to have poisoned two, as he had unquestion- 
ably beheaded one, of his three wives, suggested to the Prot- 
estant party the idea of securing and advancing the reforma- 
tion, by marrying the uxorious w T idower to a Lutheran prin- 
cess, and entering into a close alliance with the German prin- 
ces of the Smalcaldic league. 

Cromwell proposed to the king the princesses of the house 
of Cleves, and advances were made to the German princes, 
in order to see how they would regard the project. The gal- 
lant and noble elector of Saxony, at first objected strongly, 
and opposed the union of any female member of his family to 
a man of so inconstant, brutal and capricious a disposition, as the 
king of England. But it was represented to him earnestly, 
that wavering already in the scale, and half inclined to join 
heart and hand with the reformers, such a marriage would de- 
cide the English monarch, to the infinite advantage of Ger- 
many, which, strengthened by the solid alliance of England, 
might defy the united force and fraud of Spain and Rome ; 
and, ultimately, religion and policy carried the day, and, as 
usual, female happiness was sacrificed to the demon idol of ex- 
pediency and state intrigue. 

It was signified to Henry that either of the sisters, Anne or 
Amelia, was open to his addresses ; agents were despatched to 
report upon them and their respective charms ; the famous 
painter, Hans Holbein, visited the court of the Pacificator, to 
portray their charms, and send the result of his labors for the 
inspection of Henry. 

It is impossible to doubt, that Cromwell had recourse to de- 
ceit and intrigue to carry his end ; for all his agents, Christo- 



PERSON OF ANNE OF CLEVES. 397 

pher Mount, Nicholas Wolton, and, in short, all who were em- 
ployed in this business, did, beyond doubt, send the most glar- 
ing and exaggerated accounts of the beauties, talents and capa- 
bilities of the ladies ; and Holbein, whether merely from the 
natural propensity of painters to flatter ladies' portraits, and 
make foul fair, or that he received a hint from the wily minis- 
ter to make the best of it, transmitted two miniatures, both 
more than usually comely, but one, that of Anne, so eminently 
handsome, that the king was amazingly taken with it, and, 
learning that she was of a tall and well developed person, be- 
came, as usual with him, urgent and impatient for the imme- 
diate consummation of the marriage. 

The truth is, that Anne was a fine, tall, shapely German 
girl, with a good, grave, somewhat heavy, gentle, placid face, a 
dark complexion marred with the small pox, which, of course, 
did not appear in the miniature, good eyes and hair, and no 
more. In short, she had no pretensions to beauty, whatever. 
She was in all respects provincial, as compared to the accom- 
plished, refined, volatile beauties of the French and English, or 
to the stately graces of the proud donnas of the Spanish courts. 
She had not a pretension to style or grace. Probably her fine 
and shapely person was not set up, as it is termed, by any ele- 
gance of carriage or demeanor ; she could speak no language 
but her own, not even French or Latin ; she did not dance, or 
yet play on any instrument, or even sing. In a word, she dif- 
fered fully as much from the ladies with whom Henry had been 
wont to associate, as would the plain, unadorned daughter of 
a German merchant, professor or counsellor, in any of the infe. 
rior Ehenish cities of to-day, differ from a reigning beauty of 
the exclusive coteries of London or Paris. 

I, in no respect, mean or desire to detract from this excellent 



398 HER CHARACTER. 

and much injured lady — injured almost as much by the neg 
lect and contempt which she has met from posterity and his 
tory, as by the insolence and brutality of her husband. 

In my memoir of Anne Boleyn, I observed on the fact, how 
strangely the reputation of ladies, having possessed bewilder- 
ing beauty, has operated on minds which, never having been 
subject to their influence, might be expected to be impartial, 
yet have been warped into showing as much favor to the bright 
creatures, as though they had been themselves expectant lovers. 
I must now notice the converse of this position. For it is not to 
be denied, that the silence of history with regard to the high 
qualities, the gentle virtues-, the unmurmuring patience of this 
much wronged princess, her unvarying kindness to her step- 
daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, her domestic excellencies, and 
all the fine points of her character, which endeared her to her 
subjects, and preserved their regard when she became their fel- 
low subject, must be attributed to the report of her plainness 
of person, homeliness of habit, and entire lack of all the qualifica- 
tions which we attribute to a gorgeous queen, or a heroine of 
romance. Happily, for her, she had nothing of romance, noth- 
ing of sensibility or sentiment in her disposition. She had 
strong sense of duty, strong love of right, of order, of deco- 
rum, of comfort ; and, under circumstances which, to a person 
of higher excitability, more nervous temperament, and greater 
need of sympathy, would have been a cause of endless mis- 
ery, lived happy, and died honored, in a far country and among 
a foreign people, with whom she had no kindred or commu- 
nity, even of language. 

It must be admitted that the king was aware of her being 
deficient in those accomplishments, which he so much craved 
and admired ; though he was assured that she possessed the 



HER DEPARTURE. 399 

talents, which would easily enable her to acquire them. It is 
not probable, that this was the case ; for, though she was by- 
no means wanting in ability, her capacities appear to have been 
rather administrative and domestic, with a disposition incli- 
ning to be passive and acquiescent, than brilliant, rapid, or 
comprehensive. 

The very fact, however, that he so lightly accepted a bride 
deficient in all the mental graces, which we must allow him to 
have appreciated, induces the opinion, that he had formed the 
most exalted estimate of her personal beauties. It was a daring 
trick, indeed, if it were a trick, that Cromwell played on 
his dangerous master ; if an error, it was a fatal error. In 
any event, it ruined him beyond redemption. 

But to return to the course of events. Some small delays 
occurred to the arrangement of the contract of marriage, owing 
to the death of Anne's father, and to some talk of a precon- 
tract, which was said to have existed between herself and the 
Duke of Lorraine. But these difficulties were easily over- 
come ; the contract of marriage was signed at Dusseldorf on 
the 4th of September, 1539, and, in the first week of October, 
she departed from that, her native city, and proceeded over- 
land, with a splendid cortege, through the Netherlands, to her 
husband's French stronghold of Calais. There she was met 
by the Earl of Southampton, lord high admiral of England, 
the Lord William Howard, Gregory Cromwell, the brother- 
in-law of the late queen, and a splendid train of gentlemen and 
nobles. It is a curious fact, that, in that train, were kinsmen 
of five out of Henry's six queens. 

What these nobles thought of the person of their new queen, 
it is not stated. Whatever was their opinion, doubtless, they 
kept it to themselves ; since to report her plain in case the king 



400 SHE LANDS IN ENGLAND. 

might chance to find her handsome, or handsome if he should judge 
her plain, would have been equally dangerous. For several 
days, she was detained at Calais, by stress of weather, and 
there kept her Christmas, royally ; probably that was the 
pleasantest insight into royalty that she ever enjoyed. On the 
27th of December, she took ship, landed at Walmer castle, 
and proceeded, nobly escorted, to Rochester, where she was 
entertained magnificently by the bishop, who had made prep- 
aration for her passing New Year's day at his palace. 

Hither, on New Year's eve, came Henry, incognito, intend- 
ing to visit her privately on the morrow, in order, as he told 
Cromwell, " to nourish love " — and hither he sent Sir Anthony 
Brown to inform her, that " he had brought her a New Year's 
gift, if she would please to receive it." 

Brown stated afterward, " that he was struck with conster- 
nation when he was shown the queen ; and was never so much 
dismayed in his life to see a lady, so far unlike what had been 
represented." 

Yet greater, it seems, was the dismay of Henry, who, in his 
anxiety to see his new bride, in whom, probably, he expected 
to find something that should surpass in beauty the serene ma- 
jesty of Katharine of Arragon, the sparkling grace of Anne 
Boleyn, the lovely gentleness of Jane Seymour, entered her 
apartment, that same evening, somewhat abruptly, unable to 
control his impatience. He absolutely recoiled, when he saw 
her. Lord Russel, who was present at the interview, bears 
witness, that he " never saw his highness abashed, but only 
then." 

What poor Anne thought of her burly bridegroom we 
know not ; but it is clear, that she had the most cause to com- 
plain ; for Henry had lost every particle of the robust and 



henry's disappointment. 401 

manly beauty, for which he had been once famous, and was 
now merely a coarse, bloated, unwieldy man, bordering on his 
grand climacteric, and bearing on his broad, red face the traces 
of all sorts of indulgences, physical and mental, of sensuality, 
pride, cruelty and ungoverned temper. Probably, she was 
both terrified and revolted ; the rather, that he was in one of 
his moods of sullen fury ; she sank on her knees, however, at 
his entrance, and tried, to the best of her power, to tender him 
a loving welcome. Furious, as he was, and disappointed, the 
meekness and humility of her demeanor so far moved him, 
that, he for once, did so much violence to his feelings, as to 
behave himself like a gentleman ; he raised her up graciously, 
kissed her, and supped, and passed the evening with her ; yet, 
as she spoke no English, he no Dutch, and as scarce twenty 
words passed between them, and those through the medium of 
an interpreter, the first unfavorable impression was not like to 
be counteracted ; the rather that her German accent grated as 
harshly on Henry's musical ear, as her large, heavy featuras 
oflfended his classic eye. 

With that evening interview, all his forbearance ended. Wo 
betide the ministers and nobles who had to bear the brunt of 
his displeasure ! 

The first on whom he fell was Southampton, the lord high 
admiral, who had brought her to England — all this would be 
ridiculous, if it were not simply brutal. " How like you this 
woman 1 " was his first salutation to the earl. " Do you 
think her so personable, fair and beautiful, as report hath been 
made unto me ? I pray you tell me true." " I take her not for 
/air," said the admiral, who evidently did not mean to be 
held amenable, "but to be of a brown complexion." The next 
on whom his fury burst after his return to Greenwich, whither 

26 



402 HIS DISLIKE TO ANNE. 

he rode back sulkily and alone, having sent his New Year's 
gift of a rich suit of sables, which he did not consider Anne hand- 
some enough to receive from his own hand, with a cold mes- 
sage, by Sir Anthony Brown, was Cromwell, who was dearly 
to rue his agency in this matter. On seeing him, he vituper- 
ated him, with the most wholesale abuse ; charged him with 
having bound him to " a Flanders mare," and commanded 
him on his peril to find some means to extricate his neck from 
that yoke. 

But when he found that he could not withdraw without giv- 
ing the German princes cause of war against him, which he 
could not afford to do while Spain was on ill terms with him 
on account of his conduct toward Katharine, he sullenly, reluc- 
tantly, and with many brutal, ungentlemanly and unmanly ex- 
pressions of disgust and dislike, celebrated and consummated 
his marriage with this gentle, unoffending, dignified and virtu- 
ous lady, who was as far superior to him in every particular, 
as Hyperion to a Satyr, which he most resembled. 

The pomps were splendid, the pageantry magnificent, and 
to those of the commons, who were ignorant of the guilty and 
brutal secrets of the royal breast, the content of the king was 
considered perfect ; while he was, in truth, secretly devising 
how he might get rid of his newly wedded queen, and on what 
grounds or charges he might compass the death of Cromwell 
whom he had determined to destroy, in requital of his agency 
in this detested marriage. 

To the other odious qualities of his character, Henry had now 
added consummate hypocrisy ; and, while he was living with 
her as man and wife, showing her much outward attention, and 
calling her " sweetheart," and " darling," in the presence of 
her ladies, he was privately tormenting her with his captious 



GROUNDS FOR THE DIVORCE. 403 

temper, irritating her by every species of taunt and aggrava- 
tion, and, yet worse and more infamously impugning her vir- 
tue, in private, as if she had not come a virgin to his bed, and 
declaring, in public, that it never had been his intention to own 
her his wife. 

How to get rid of her, however, appears to have been the 
difficulty ; and, as was usual with him, when he was planning 
any unusual enormity, he began to talk about his tenderness 
of conscience, and his scruples at living with a heretic Lutheran ; 
when happily, perhaps, for herself, she let fall an expression, 
which enabled him to release himself from her, without accu- 
sing her of adultery, shedding her blood, or shaming her hon- 
est name by any charge of infamy. 

Driven one day to extremity by his irritating persecution, 
when she was conscious of striving to the utmost of her abil- 
ity to gratify his every whim, she was provoked into saying to 
him, " that if she had not been compelled to marry him, she 
might have fulfilled her engagement to another, to whom she 
had promised her hand." This was enough. 

It gave him a clue, on which he was not slow to act ; but, 
first, he had work of blood and vengeance to perform ; and 
from work like that, he never held back his hand. Reginald 
de la Pole had given him fresh offence, and he was resolved to 
punish him by the judicial slaughter of the last of his kindred. 
Gertrude, marchioness of Exeter, and De la Pole's mother, 
the last of the high blood of the Plantagenets, the aged Coun- 
tess of Salisbury, must be brought to the block, in order that 
the king might be avenged on his enemy. There was no 
proof, no charge, no shadow of offence against them, but, at 
Henry's order, Cromwell procured their attainder, by act of 
parliament, without hearing, and their condemnation to death, 



404 VENGEANCE ON CROMWELL. 

without witnesses, written evidence or criminal process. This 
was an enormous villainy of Cromwell's own creation, a high- 
handed outrage on law and justice, which he had been the first 
to introduce into the desecrated courts of England. Perillus- 
like, he was the first to suffer by his own monstrous creation. 
He had taught 

" Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return 
To plague the inventor." 

The unhappy ladies were committed to the tower, reprieved 
for a while, and detained as hostages for their kinsman's good 
behavior, yet not to escape, one of them, at least, the dread 
conclusion of the scaffold and the axe. But Cromwell, so soon 
as he had accomplished this last crime, as if, with truly fiend- 
ish malignity, Henry had resolved that he should jeopard his 
own soul, before he would destroy his body, was arrested, on 
a charge of heresy and high treason, by the Duke of Norfolk, 
at the very council board, over which he had so long presided. 
He was brought to the block with all speed, by the method he 
had himself introduced, of attainder, without trial, hearing, or 
opportunity of defence. On the 10th of June he was ar- 
rested ; on the 28th of July, he laid down his head on the 
block, and died on Tower hill, professing himself a Catholic 
and no heretic, to the last ; guiltless, certainly, of the crimes 
for which he suffered, but surely worthy of death, for the very 
many wickednesses he had aided the king to commit, and for 
the very many innocent victims he had sent before him, on 
the bloody way he was himself bound so soon to travel. 

The son of a blacksmith, he rose, by no good arts, but by 
the practice of all evil ones, by pandering basely to the passions, 
ministering to the willfulness, and furnishing weapons to the 
wickedness of the king, to be lord privy seal, viceregent to the 



CBOMWELL AND BARNES. 405 

king, in spiritualities, knight of the garter, earl of Essex, lord 
great chamberlain of England. While the king had work for 
him, he used him ; when the work was done, he broke him 
and cast him away. Like Haman, he was hanged upon the 
gallows he had erected for Mordecai, and there were none who 
pitied him. 

Nearly at the same time, another, but a blameless, victim 
to his agency in this inauspicious and unhappy marriage, the 
pious and learned Doctor Barnes, perished yet more cruelly. 
He was patronized and beloved by Anne, yet Anne could not 
save him. He died nobly, a martyr for his principles and his 
faith, in the devouring flames, in Smithfield. 

It is credible, that recourse was had to these arrests and 
prosecutions, for the purpose of intimidating the queen, and 
deterring her from opposing the will of her tyrant lord. For 
he had now seen Katharine Howard — whom he had first met at 
a dinner party at the Bishop of Winchester's, and appointed 
maid of honor to the queen — long enough to love her, and de- 
termine on raising her to the crown. And, within a few days 
after the arrest of Cromwell, Anne of Cleves was commanded 
to withdraw herself to Eichmond, on the pretence that she 
needed change of air. Yet a few days afterward, some of the 
very lords, who had been instrumental in bringing about her 
marriage, moved the peers, on the ground that they doubted 
the validity of the contracted alliance, and had fears concern- 
ing the succession, to petition the king for leave to call a cler- 
ical convention, and inquire into the question, to decide on it 
according to the law. Whether intimidation was intended or 
no — and I doubt not it was — indisputably, it was effected ; as 
is evident, from the agony of terror, into which this unhappy 
lady fell, when Suffolk, Southampton, and Wriothesley visited 



406 DIVORCE OF ANNE. 

her at Richmond, in order to convey to her the king's deter- 
mination. 

For the matter had been pushed rapidly forward, as was, 
indeed, everything that Henry undertook, from the moment 
of its first inception. The king had answered the lords' peti- 
tion cheerfully, as if he were doing a great favor to the coun- 
try, professing himself willing to take any measures that 
should be for the good of his well beloved people, and ready 
to answer any questions, that might be proposed to him for 
that end. 

The convocation of the clergy was held, and, on the 9th day of 
July, unanimously declared the marriage null, on three 
grounds ; first, that she was precontracted to the Prince of 
Lorraine ; second, that the king had wedded her against his 
will, and had never given his inward consent to the consum- 
mation of the marriage ; and third, that there were no hopes 
of issue. 

When the three councillors entered her apartment, at Rich- 
mond, of whom Suffolk was the constant instrument of Hen- 
ry's matrimonial tyrannies, and Wriothesley, the basest, mean- 
est, and cruellest of all his low-born tools, conspicuously infa- 
mous for his rudeness and brutality to ladies, mindful of the 
fate of Anne Boleyn, the queen fell fainting to the floor in an 
agony of terror. It required all their assurances to soothe her 
and banish her terror? ; but when she learned, that no more 
was required of her, than to consent to the divorce, and, in so 
far as she might, to reconcile her brother and friends thereto, 
she consented with almost too much cheerfulness and alacrity. 
Henry, who could not conceive that his persecuted and aban- 
doned wives should do otherwise than idolize him, to the last, 
was astonished ; it was too good news to be true. Neverthe- 



THE DAUGHTER OF CLEVES. 407 

less, it was true. Anne not only professed her perfect willing- 
ness to pleasure the king in all things, but returned him her 
wedding ring; spoke of her marriage as pretended ; accepted 
with thankfulness her allotted rank of the king's adopted sis- 
ter, which was given to her, with precedence over all ladies in 
the realm, except the future queen and the king's daughters, 
Elizabeth and Mary ; and agreed to carry on no correspond- 
ence with her family abroad, which should not be subject to 
the king's inspection. This done, she received grants of three 
thousand pounds a year, in lands, most of them the forfeited 
property of Cromwell, who died, unpitied, a few days after her 
divorce, but on the condition only, that she should reside 
within the realm. Richmond palace was assigned to her as a 
residence ; and there, with a peaceful little cours, and among 
ladies assigned to her, after those had been dismissed, who 
were sworn to attend her as queen, she lived contentedly, 
merrily, and in happiness, not often granted to ladies who sat, 
in those days, on England's thorny throne. 

Cranmer pronounced her divorce. It was the strange fate 
of this man, thrice to pronounce the same marriages of his 
master valid and invalid. If the old Earl of Warwick, in a 
former reign, excited wonder, as the king-maker, surely this 
prelate should have excited greater wonder, who made and un- 
made three queens of England, without a cause for making, or 
pretext for unmaking one. 

Anne, who signed herself, hereafter, " daughter of Cleves," 
was evidently detained, in some sort, as a hostage for the 
peaceable conduct of her German relatives ; among whom, her 
brother, the reigning Duke of Cleves, was thrown into a rage 
of grief and indignation, and wept burning tears of humiliation 
at hearing of the disgrace and repudiation of his beloved sister, 



408 HENRY S SUSPICIONS. 

who, evidently from the tenor of more than one of her letters 
to him, enjoining on him caution and quietude, considered that 
her life might be endangered by any " untowardness " on his 
part. 

Twice she fell under suspicion from the jealous king, who 
ever kept a watchful eye of espoinage over his adopted sister's 
doings, and both times for the same cause — a false rumor of 
her being pregnant. The first time, immediately after his 
marriage with Katharine Howard, when between his love for 
his new doll, and his furious desire for heirs, it was something 
doubtful, whether he wished or feared that the rumor should 
prove true — the second time, after the fall of the fair and 
frail Howard. On both occasions, the rumors were easily 
proved false ; but, on the latter, one of her ladies, Elizabeth 
Basset, who had exclaimed, when she heard of that unhappy 
girl's execution, " What a man the king is ! and how many 
wives will he have ? " had some difficulty in saving her own 
head, and only got off, by declaring that the tidings of Katha- 
rine Howard's naughtiness had so far astounded her, that she 
must have lost her senses when she used those words. 

Anne of Cleves, in all these difficult matters, showed con- 
summate prudence and judgment. She dressed splendidly ; 
entered largely into all sports and diversions ; kept a liberal 
household, partly after the old English open hospitality, partly 
after the decorous fashion of German economy ; and, whether 
that she really was exuberantly rejoiced to be free from the 
perilous chains of royal wedlock, or merely that she affected 
excessive happiness, in order to lull to sleep Henry's suspi- 
cions, showed herself much livelier, cheerfuller, and more 
openly gay, after the dissolution of her marriage, than she had 



HENRY VISITS HER. 409 

ever been during its pendency, when she was probably dis- 
tracted with anxieties and apprehensions. 

Henry visited her, not unfrequently at Richmond, and al- 
ways found a pleasant and light-hearted welcome from her. 
During the brief reign of her successor, Katharine Howard, she 
was once a visitor of the royal pair, and passed some days 
with them at the royal residence of Hampton Court ; but 
•when, after her rival's bloody death, her friends, in Germany, 
and the Protestant party in England, hoped and endeavored 
to reinstate her, she held prudently but positively aloof, un- 
willing, if it had been offered to her, to resume the dangerous 
dignity from which she had so happily escaped. 

It is remarkable, that Hever castle, the patrimony of Anne 
Boleyn, of which the king had, with his usual grasping tyr- 
anny, possessed himself on her murder, became one of the 
jointure houses of Anne of Cleves, to which was added, in 
exchange for the manor of Blitchingley, which was also her 
property, Penshurst, famous in after days, as the birth-place 
of the gallant Sir Philip Sydney. Here, and at her other ru- 
ral manors, the noble daughter of Cleves happily and tran- 
quilly passed the noon of her life. She had become thor- 
oughly English in her heart and feelings, and lived the life 
— useful, serene, and tranquil, but noiseless and unshining, — of 
a noble English lady. When she appeared in public, the pre- 
cedence, which had been guaranteed to her, was unhesitatingly 
accorded. But that was not often, for she shunned splendor 
and sought repose. She lived in the closest amity with her 
step-daughters, — the Protestant Elizabeth, as with the Romish 
and priest-ridden Mary, — as the constant interchange of gifts 
and good offices between them, and the bequests to them in 
her last testament, clearly evinces. Her last public appear 
R 



410 HER DEATH AND MONUMENT. 

ance was at the inauspicious marriage of the latter princess to 
Philip of Spain, a union which entailed misery on her coun- 
try, infamy and detestation on her name. " The daughter of 
Cleves " survived her barbarous and brutal lord by ten years, 
and, by his death, was at liberty if she chose it, again to try 
the bitters and the sweets of the matrimonial cup ; but her 
experience was not such as to tempt her to the trial. She 
died as she had lived, an honorable, unpretending, happy, En- 
glish lady ; but strange to say, having entered that Protestant 
realm, a Protestant, she left it, when she died, a Papist. She 
died peacefully, at the palace in Chelsea, of a declining sick- 
ness, in the forty-first year of her age, leaving a will singularly 
indicative of her amiable and gentle character. " Her benefi- 
cent spirit," says Miss Strickland, with much truth, "was 
wholly occupied in deeds of mercy, caring for the happiness 
of her maidens and alms-children, and forgetting not any faith- 
ful servant, however lowly in degree." 

Many more beautiful and showy women, many greater and 
more celebrated queens have gone to their long homes, but 
few, if any, more highly endowed with all the best and sweet- 
est qualities of womanhood. 

She was buried, by Queen Mary's order, with some mag- 
nificence, in Westminster Abbey. Her tomb occupies a place 
of great honor, near the high altar, at the feet of King Sebert, 
the original founder of that minster church ; but it is rarely 
recognized, though on a close inspection her initials, A. C, in- 
terwoven in a monogram, may be discovered on various parts 
of the structure, which was never finished. " Not one of 
Henry's wives," says Fuller, " excepting Anne of Cleves, had 
a monument, and hers was but a half a one." 



KATHARINE HOWARD. 

MABKIED, 1540; BEHEADED, 1541. 



Was she chaste and fair, 
Worthy a king's, or more, a Roman's bed f 

How lived, how loved, how died she ? 

Bybon. CJvilde Harold. 



KATHARINE HOWARD. 

BORN, 1522 ; MARRIED, 1540 5 BEHEADED, 1542. 



"Was she chaste and fair, 
Worthy a king's, or more, a Roman's bed. 

How lived, how loved, how died she 1 

Bteon. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



History, in all its sad details, has no sadder tale than this 
of the young, beautiful, unhappy Howard, whom youth, sta- 
tion, beauty seem only to have betrayed into deeper and more 
inevitable ruin. In all England's splendid and illustrious ar- 
istocracy, there is no nobler name than that from which she 
sprang ; and at no period, earlier or later, of English history 
was that noble name more gloriously or more constantly 
brought before the public, than during the reign of Henry VIII. 
In the first brilliant years of his sway, full of promise and pros- 
perity, before one trait of his evil passions had developed it- 
self, while he was yet, to all eyes, the brave, intelligent, aspi- 
ring youth, full of the high, mingled blood of the Tudors and 
Plantagenets, eager to win honor and renown from, then, he- 
reditarily hostile France, one scion of this noble name distin- 
guished himself by his gallant bearing and glorious death, as 



414 THE HOW ARCS. 

lord high admiral of England, the brave, blunt, truly En- 
glish sailor, Sir Edward Howard. He left, in his testament, 
the gold and jewelled cup of Thomas a Becket to Queen Kath- 
arine of Arragon, and to the king his golden whistle, the in- 
signia which belonged, of right, to his office, and which he sus- 
pended about his neck by a chain of the same precious metal. 
It fell to the lot of a grander and nobler legatee. Boarding a 
French galliot, under the batteries of the bay of Conquet, he 
was unsupported by his men, and died, fighting desperately 
against the pikes of the enemy, thus making good in his death 
his favorite maxim, that the valor of a sailor ought to be akin 
to madness. Before he fell, however, he cast his whistle into 
the waves, that it should not be a trophy in the hands of the 
enemy. It is not unfit that the sea should receive the noble 
legacy of one dying English admiral, when so many of those 
have won their laurels from the sea. 

To him succeeded, as high admiral, his brother, the Lord 
Thomas Howard ; for at that time the distinction was not 
clearly defined, between the sea and land services, and even at 
a much later date we find instances of admirals, such as Co- 
ligny and D'Andelot, performing the duties of generals by 
land ; and of generals, on the other hand, commanding ships 
at sea. In fact, the services were not distinct ; for the crew 
who worked the ship, under marine officers, had nothing to do 
with the fighting of it ; while the men-at-arms, who fought un- 
der the command of their own captains, had nothing to do with 
the nautical manoeuvres, and probably scarce knew the stem 
from the stern of the vessel. 

In the terrible and glorious victory of Flodden, which was 
won by his father, the gallant Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas led 
the English van, on which fell the brunt of the action, and 



THE BIRTH OF KATHARINE. 415 

which was for a considerable time in much jeopardy, being 
oppressed by numbers, and nearly borne down by the serried 
phalanx of Scottish spears, under Lennox and Argyle. Under 
Sir Thomas, served yet another brother, Edmund, who showed 
singular valor in the action, and was thrice dismounted, three 
horses being killed under him. For their share in this vic- 
tory, the Earl of Surrey was elevated to the dukedom of Nor- 
folk, Lord Thomas to the earldom of Surrey, and an augmen- 
tation was granted to the arms of Howard, the upper half of a 
red lion, the royal bearing of Scotland, pierced with an arrow. 

This Sir Edmund — who was one of the noble bachelors who 
followed Mary of England in her bridal train to France, in 
which figured also his lovely niece, daughter of his own sister, 
Anne Boleyn — married Joyeuse, or Jocosa, daughter of Sir 
Richard Culpepper, of Hollingbourne, in Kent, and widow of 
Sir John Leigh. By her he had three sons, first, and there- 
after three daughters, the second of whom is the subject of this 
memoir, being, in a word, his fifth child. Now, supposing Sir 
Edmund to have been married in the autumn of the very 
year in which we find him a bachelor, that is to say, 1515, it 
is impossible that his fifth child could have been born previ- 
ous to the close of the year 1520, or the commencement of 
1521. 

There is an object in this calculation, as will appear here- 
after, stronger than the mere verification of a date ; since to 
her extreme youth may be ascribed all the imprudencies and 
miseries of this unhappy girl, and on it must be founded all 
that we can offer in her apology. 

Early in Katharine's childhood her own mother died — the 
greatest misfortune, beyond doubt, that can befall a woman — ■ 
and her father married, a second time, Dorothy, the daughter 



416 THE CHILDHOOD OF KATHARINE. 

of Lord Troyes. The old and noble duke, the Earl of Sur- 
rey of Flodden, dying shortly after Edmund's first wife, Sir 
Thomas, afterward created Earl Surrey, became duke ; and 
Sir Edmund, being about this time appointed controller of 
Calais and its marches, availed himself of the offer of his step- 
mother, Agnes Tylney, the dowager duchess, to bring up the 
little Katharine in her household. 

It must be borne in mind, that at this period it was not the 
general use of parents, especially of royal or very noble houses, 
to bring up their children at home, but rather to place them 
out in other households of equal rank, where they were educa- 
ted, it seems to have been supposed, better and more strin- 
gently — a certain degree of honorable semi-servitude being 
then considered necessary to the formation of the youth of 
both sexes — than they could have been under the domestic 
roof. In this instance, the practice was the ruin of Katharine. 

Of the character or history of this Agnes Tylney, the old 
duchess of Norfolk, as she was called, to distinguish her from 
the wife of her step-son, little is known ; and that little equally 
unfavorable to the qualities of her heart and of her head, but 
more especially of the latter. She appears, in the circumstances 
brought up by this sad case, to have been a person of no judg- 
ment, a vain, talkative, weak, gossipping old woman, without 
either prudence or common sense. 

She was continually at feud, and, it would seem, engaged 
in lawsuits with her step-sons, especially with the present duke ; 
to which must, apparently, be attributed the rancorous enmity 
exhibited by that nobleman to both his unfortunate nieces, at 
times when their cruel situation most claimed the sympathy, 
if not the succor and support, of a kinsman. 

The duchess, at the time when Katharine was committed to 



MANOX THE MUSICIAN. 417 

her charge, resided at Lambeth, which was a very general re- 
sort of Henry's nobles and courtiers, being regarded as one of 
the most pleasant and fashionable quarters in the vicinity of the 
court, with fine lawns, orchards, and gardens, sloping to the 
river, and numerous palatial residences, among which were 
those of Katharine's uncles, the Duke of Norfolk, the Lord 
William Howard, as also of the Lord Beaumont, and other 
great persons. 

In the court of her elder niece, Anne Boleyn, the old count- 
ess played a somewhat prominent part, figuring both in. her 
coronation and in the christening of Elizabeth, the two events 
taking place in the same year, 1533 — a fatal one, indeed, to 
the unhappy Katharine, who was now only in her thirteenth 
year. We know so little of the interior and domestic ar- 
rangements of the great baronial houses of this day, that it is 
scarcely possible to say how far the circumstances of this 
child's ruin — for she was but a child — are to be attributed to 
especial neglect on the part of the duchess, and how far they 
are ascribable only to the lax system and rude and vicious 
habits of the time. It is certain, however, that she was made 
to associate with waiting women, persons not of family or sta- 
tion, as their names clearly indicate, but mere servants, living 
among them, and sleeping at night with them, in the same 
common dormitory. And, melancholy to relate, they chanced 
to be the most depraved of their sex. 

There was in the household of the duchess, one Henry Ma- 
nox, a player of virginals — it is worthy of remark in this con- 
nection, that at this time, and long after, the musicians, lute- 
players, and singers of the court society, perform a large part, 
in all the most disgraceful intrigues of the day. Low born, 
and often illiterate men, raised for the most part by their mu- 
ll* 27 



418 . INTIMACY OF KATHARINE AND MANOX. 

sical talents from the dregs of society, not gentlemen from in- 
nate instincts, education, or high feeling, and yet raised by their 
art, and by their position as instructors, to a certain station of 
equality among gentlemen, and to terms of intimacy with their 
pupils, their standing in the community was anomalous, their 
influence was almost invariably evil, and themselves, for the 
most part, thorough profligates and villains. This Manox had 
become intimate with the unlucky child, at Horsham, the coun- 
try place of the duchess, in Norfolk ; and, though he had not 
seduced her, which her tender years forbade, he had obtained 
a fearful degree of intimacy with her ; had brought her to con- 
sent to a clandestine correspondence with him, which was car- 
ried on, in succession, by two of the duchess's women, one 
Mistress Isabel, and, after her, one Dorothy Barwyke. About 
this juncture, a person named Mary Lascelles, entered the house- 
hold of the duchess; she had been nurse to the Lord William 
Howard's first child, and, on the death of his wife, was engaged 
to attend the youthful Katharine. This woman, speedily dis- 
covering, from the prattling of the servants, that there were 
love passages between the young lady and the musician, re- 
proached him violently ; threatened him for his presumption, 
and concluded by telling him, "She is come of a noble house, 
and if thou shouldst marry her, some of her house would kill 
thee." He replied, in the most profligate language, avowing 
openly that he thought not of marriage, that his intentions 
were dishonorable, and that, from the liberties Katharine had 
permitted him, he was confident of success. 

This infamous Lascelles, who, after ruining the girl, in the end 
betrayed the queen, and brought her to the block, instead of re- 
porting this villainy to the duchess, who might have prevented far- 
ther misery and shame, told Katharine herself what had passed • 



FRANCIS DEREHAM. 419 

and, although the poor child answered, in her shame and in- 
dignation, that " she cared not for him," she immediately gave 
the lie to her own words, by going, in the company of this 
base woman, in search of the virginal player, to the servant's 
hall of Lord Beaumont, where she found and upbraided him 
with his infamy ; but on his pleading the excess of passion as 
his excuse, saying " that he was mad, and knew not what he 
said," she had the weakness to forgive him. She was once 
seen in his company, afterward, walking in the orchard of the 
duchess with him at Lambeth. 

Such is the history, a sad one and pitiable, of her first lapse 
from discretion, if not from virtue. If she were innocent in 
fact, it was her tender years alone, that protected her ; chance, 
not steadiness or • honor, that preserved her. Of the villain, 
Manox, no more is known ; nor does he again figure in his- 
tory, until he is found, shortly previous to the concluding 
tragedy, a musician in the king's household, into which, like 
another infamous person, Joan Bulmer, a confidant of her 
guilty indiscretions in early youth, who called herself Katha- 
rine's secretary, he had compelled the queen to procure his 
idmission, by threats of disclosure. 

The next case is more conclusive, not of indiscretion, but of 
actual guilt, infamy, and turpitude almost inconceivable. A 
bold, wild, dashing cavalier, named Francis Dereham, a gen- 
tleman pensioner of the Duke of Norfolk, who maintained a 
band of these daring desperadoes, fierce profligate hangers on, 
the last remains of the feudal retainers of the middle ages, a 
bold, handsome, insinuating man, an especial favorite of the 
old duchess, and a distant blood relation of the family, sue 
ceeded next to make himself master, not of her heart only, 
but of her person. 



420 DEREHAM IN HER APARTMENT. 

Of the fact, there is no doubt ; it cannot be disputed or con 
cealed ; nor did Katharine herself attempt to deny it, although 
she persisted, to the last, in asserting that all the favors he ob- 
tained from her, were obtained by violence. This, however, 
is totally disproved, and rendered impossible by the circum- 
stances, which are too gross and revolting for detail or 
comment. 

This Dereham, as it was shown, and admitted, on her trial, 
had obtained means of access to the women's dormitory, after 
the duchess had locked the door, as was her 'wont, and retired 
for the night. Hither he used to repair often, bringing with 
him wine, strawberries, and other dainties, to regale the young 
lady of his lawless love, and her attendants ; and there, it was 
notorious that he was almost openly admitted to possession of 
her charms. 

* There is much reason to believe that she truly loved this bold, 
bad man, and some, to suspect that she was troth-plighted to 
him. It was shown that they were in the habit of kissing and 
caressing each other publicly, before witnesses, and calling each 
other husband and wife. Dereham was wont to procure her 
articles of dress and feminine finery, at her request, at his own 
expense ; she wore embroidered pansies for " remembrance " 
of him, and friar's knots for " Francis ; " and so open and in- 
discreet were their endearments, that the old duchess at length 
discovering that something was amiss, boxed Mrs. Bulmer's 
ears for permitting such improprieties, and chastised both her 
young relation, and Dereham, whom she drove from her 
presence. 

It is even doubtful whether already, and not at a later date, 
though still prior to her marriage with Henry, the duchess 
was not aware of all the circumstances of the case. 



DISCOVERY AND FLIGHT. 421 

At length Dereham, who was a most reckless adventurer, 
was involved in some transaction, which rendered it necessary 
that he should leave his country for a while, when he betook 
himself to Ireland, with which he had some unnamed connec- 
tion, and where he is said, and that with much probability, to 
have been periodically engaged as a buccaneer or pirate. At 
this, his first evasion, he left all his money, to the amount of 
above a hundred pounds, in Katharine's charge, declaring that 
if he came not back again, he constituted her his heiress ; but, 
unhappily, he did return ; the correspondence was renewed, 
and the whole affair was discovered. It cannot be doubted 
that it was, now, actually known to many persons, though 
from respect to her father, and the great family to which she 
belonged, it was hushed up for the moment. 

Dereham was now fain to fly in earnest, lest some of the 
ruined girl's hot-blooded and infuriate relations should sacrifice 
him, as they surely would have done, an offering due to ven- 
geance and family honor. 

For a time, through the woman Ackworth, afterward by 
marriage Bulmer, styling herself her secretary, Katharine still 
continued to keep up a secret correspondence with the fugitive, 
to whom she had said, amid tears and last embraces, as, at 
peril of his life, he bade her his last adieu, these memorable 
words — "Never shalt thou live to say to me, 'thou hast 
swerved.' " 

It would almost appear, from this peculiar mention of Kath- 
arine's secretary, in connection with letters of a nature, which 
no woman would be likely to entrust to an amanuensis, and 
from some other circumstances which occur later in her his- 
tory, as well as from the fact that there is no trace, among the 
state papers, of anything in the shape of a document, written 



422 HER CHANGED DEMEANOR. 

or signed by her, that this high bom lady was not able to 
write. Yet in the age in which she lived, when a higher de- 
gree of knowledge was common among refined women, inclu- 
ding even the use of Latin and Greek, than is often met at the 
present day, this would be a thing so unaccountable as to argue, 
on the part of her guardians, even a greater degree of neglect 
and want of supervision, than we have a right to assume. 

After Dereham's departure, a remarkable change came over 
Katharine. She seemed to awake to a clear sense of her crim- 
inality, of the ruin and disgrace into which she had been be- 
trayed ; and to a clear perception of the unworthiness and in- 
famy of those who had destroyed her. She was, henceforth, 
as remarkable for her extreme modesty, feminine reserve, and 
maidenly deportment, as she had been before for willfulness 
and wantonness, which seem, however, to have arisen more 
from the thoughtless levity and the want of proper education, 
and the absence of proper standards, than from a perverted 
heart, or the dominion of evil passions. 

All her errors were committed at a very early age ; cer- 
tainly before she had attained her fifteenth year ; and, as she 
advanced toward womanhood, the delicacy and sense of shame 
which she had never learned in her childhood from a mother's 
holy teaching, seems to have dawned on her all at once, and 
increased immediately to their full force, so as to become, from 
that day forth, the rule and motive principle of her life. Dere- 
ham, it appears, after a time, returned clandestinely from Ire- 
land, and made some efforts to regain his ancient intimacy with 
her; but, with the reserve and refinement which had come to 
her, alas ! too late, she had contracted a repugnance, amount- 
ing almost to personal abhorrence and fear of the man, who 
had perverted her innocent ignorance of evil to such base uses. 



SHE PLEASES HENRY. 423 

She repelled him contemptuously ; and when a report having 
arisen to the effect that she was about to be married to her 
maternal kinsman, Thomas Culpepper, Dereham, attributing 
her altered manner to this circumstance, asked her " if she was 
going to be married to him, for he heard it so reported," 
answered him with scorn and anger — "what should you 
trouble me therewith, for you know I will not have you ; 
and if you heard such a report, you have heard more than I 
do know." 

It is alleged, moreover, that he endeavored to use his influ- 
ence to prevent her from going to court ; but if he did so, in- 
fluence and authority were alike wanting to him ; she went, in 
an evil hour to herself, and he returned to his wild practices 
and buccaneering habits, whatever they were, in Ireland. 

When Henry was first acquainted with Katharine, when she 
was first appointed maid of honor to Anne of Cleves, when 
the sprightliness and beauty of her manner and her person first 
attached the wandering passions of the king, does not appear ; 
nor can it be positively ascertained how old she was when she 
was married, though she could not have been older than her 
eighteenth year. Report says that her first meeting with the 
arbiter of her life, if not of her fates, for they were in some 
sort determined beforehand, took place at a dinner party at 
Gardiner's, the bishop of Winchester, and that, even on that 
first occasion, she had riveted Henry's fancy. 

The gossip soon got abroad, and we find it recorded in pri- 
vate letters that, " the king is going to part from his wife, that 
he may be married to Mrs. Howard, a very little girl " — and 
again we have Marillac writing to Francis, " Now it is said the 
king is going to marry a lady of great beauty, daughter to a 
deceased brother of the Duke of Norfolk. It is even said, 



424 HER MARRIAGE WITH HENRY. 

that the marriage hath already taken place, and it is kept 
secret." 

It was now, that Katharine's dangers began — her old enemy, 
Bulmer, hearing of her advancement, wrote, claiming to be 
admitted into her royal household ; and intimidated, doubtless, 
by fear of disclosure, with that folly which is almost akin to 
insanity, born of consciousness and terror, she consented. 

Secondly, Francis Dereham reappeared on the stage, and, 
well aware of what was in progress, observed to one of his 
comrades — "I could be sure of Mrs. Howard if I would, but 
I dare not ; the king begins to love her, but were he dead, I 
am sure I might marry her." 

Lastly, the old Duchess of Norfolk — whose garrulous folly, 
continually inquiring of the domestics, as if purposely to keep 
up the old memories, " what had become of Francis Dere- 
ham 1 " and expressing her opinion " that belike Katharine 
Howard would know where he was," could scarcely fail to kindle 
suspicion — was now guilty of the indescribable folly of recom- 
mending her to the king, as a person suitable to the honor 
which he designed for her. By all accounts that remain, all 
evidence that can be adduced, Katharine was guilty of none of 
that odious levity and treachery in supplanting her mistress, 
which must create so much indignation against her cousin 
Anne, and Jane Seymour. Her conduct was perfectly deco- 
rous ; she was not wedded until after the divorce of Anne of 
Cleves was pronounced and promulgated ; so, at least, it is au- 
thoritatively stated, although no records of the solemnization 
of this marriage were ever produced. Shortly, however, after 
its public announcement, Anne of Cleves was the guest of 
Henry and his new queen, at Hampton court, a fact which is 



A MEMORIAL. 425 

entirely incompatible with the idea of her having wronged her 
royal mistress, while serving as her maid of honor. 

Of this unhappy queen, little is known save the commence- 
ment and the end of her career, the sin and the punishment. 
Of her married life, brief as it was, there is scarcely preserved 
a memorial. The royal treasures were nearly exhausted, at 
the date of her marriage, by the pomps and pageants so pro- 
fusely bestowed to conceal the hollowness, which lay within 
the outer show, that blazoned the nuptials of the detested, 
Flemish bride. The royal pair lived, during the first half year, 
almost like a private couple, amid the peaceful retirements of 
the country, and in the green shades and grassy parks that sur- 
round Hampton court and Windsor castle, the loveliest of 
England's semi-rural, yet all-magnificent suburban palaces. The 
king waxed every day fonder and fonder of his beautiful young 
bride, and but for that fatal, retrospective blot, that hidden 
blight, cankering unseen, the blush of her bosom's purity 
and faith, it would be difficult to say that she deserved not 
his love. 

The only memorial, which remains of this portion of her 
married life, is a sweet, a beautiful, a touching memorial. It 
shows a feeling heart, one unhardened by the policy, the state in- 
trigue, the cruelty, of a cold court-world, one fearless of miscon- 
struction or reproach, where charity was called for, or sympathy 
required. It is an order on her tailor — nothing more — in those 
times tailors were not confined solely to the ruder and harder 
sex — for a suit of warm, winter apparel, furred night-gowns 
and petticoats, worsted kirtles and the like, for the venerable 
Countess of Salisbury, the last of the Plantagenets, who lay, 
during the cold, winter weather, in the damp dungeons of the 
tower, a prisoner under sentence of death, despoiled of all her 



426 HER FIRST PERIL. 

substance, doomed to the block, on which she was scarce to lay 
her head before it should be followed by the bright, youthful 
head of her, who now cared so kindly for her wants, in the 
time of trouble. During the following summer, the royal 
pair made a progress through the north country, where an un- 
successful rebellion had been recently suppressed, and where, 
eager to demonstrate their returning loyalty, the whole pop- 
ulation received them in extacies of joy and congratulation. 

Never had Katharine seen or enjoyed so much of the splen- 
dors and charms of royalty, as during this progress ; yet, in this 
progress, she committed the fatal errors that destroyed her. At 
Pontefract Dereham intruded himself on her, and compelled her, 
by his pertinacity and threats, seconded by the persuasions of the 
old duchess, to give him the appointment of her private sec- 
retary ; or as some say, to employ him, only, in the transcrip- 
tion of two or three private letters, in the absence of her proper 
secretary. At Lincoln, a few days afterward, she imprudently 
granted a long private interview to Thomas Culpepper, in her 
closet or privy chamber, no person being present except the lady 
Rochefort, the accuser of Anne Boleyn, and witness against 
her own brother, who was Katharine's lady of the bed- 
chamber. 

On the 26th of October, the royal party returned to Wind- 
sor, and on the 30th, proceeded to Hampton court, there to 
keep the feast of All Souls ; and so little fear did Katharine 
now entertain from the past, that it may be said, without ex- 
aggeration, that never before were the skies of her future so 
bright and full of promise. 

Henry had actually drawn up a memorandum, and handed 
it to the Bishop of Lincoln, whereby he should frame a thanks- 
giving to be offered up to God on the morrow, recording his 



CRANMER PLOTS HER RUIN. 427 

especial gratitude for the excellent good wife he had vouch- 
safed to him, and for the happy times he was enjoying and 
hoped to enjoy with her. 

When that morrow came, Cranmer handed him in return, a 
a paper containing a full and succinct account of all Katha- 
rine's ante-connubial errors, praying the king to examine it 
at his leisure, and inform him of his pleasure on the subject. 

It was pretended that the brother of the wretched woman, 
Lascelles, had divulged the circumstances, which he had from 
his sister — who was represented as being stung by conscience — ■ 
to the Archbishop ; that he disclosed it to his colleagues, 
Lord Hertford, and the lord chancellor ; and that, together, 
they judged it too grave a matter to be concealed from his 
majesty. 

The truth is probably this. By the divorce of Anne of 
Cleves, the Lutheran party, which had gained a temporary as- 
cendency, was cast down, and the " men of the old learning," 
had regained the king's ear by Katharine's elevation, that lady 
being, as has been noted, the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, 
and patronized by Gardiner who were avowedly inclined to 
that party. It has been alleged that Henry's fifth queen 
had enlisted herself in their cause, and was using the in- 
fluence she possessed with the king, which was very great, to 
overthrow Cranmer and the reformers. No proof can be ad- 
duced of this tradition. Katharine Howard does not appear to 
have possessed the talents implied by the supposition of such 
a scheme, if she had the will, which is doubtful, nor was she 
of a jealous or intriguing disposition. Beyond question, how- 
ever, a privy council had been held at Gorstwick's house— the 
owner of which had, the preceding spring, openly accused 
Cranmer of heresy in parliament— Gardiner presiding; at 



428 CHARGES AGAINST KATHARINE. 

which it was resolved to take strenuous measures against that 
prelate, who was undeniably in secret a reformer, to the full 
extent of the Lutheran creed. 

To save himself, it was necessary to strike a blow that should 
be felt by the whole of the Romish and Anglican church-party, 
and what so ready method of doing so, as through the queen 1 
Her secret, known to so many, had undoubtedly been whispered 
secretly abroad, since her rise to such high station ; for faults 
and sins, which may lie hid in the humble and the lowly, 
" whose fortunes and the stories of their lives are plunged," 
as Sallust has it, " in the same obscurity," are instantly re- 
vealed and made clear as day by the blaze of distinction, 
which makes public the virtues alike and the vices of the high 
and proud in birth and station. To the great it is permitted 
to have nothing secret. Katharine, unhappy child, was neither 
proud nor haughty — with all her faults, she had a loving na- 
ture, a humble and retiring disposition ; but the curse of great- 
ness had fallen upon her, and wear it as she might, she was to 
rue it. Attention once called to her early life, suspicion once 
awakened, and revenge and policy seeking her destruction, 
witnesses were easily obtained without subornation, and the 
whole truth was revealed ; nor the truth only, for doubts were 
circulated, as if she had persisted in her licentious courses, and 
dishonored the king's bed. 

The king was, at first, utterly incredulous ; but, as was natu- 
ral, for his own satisfaction, and for her honor, which he fully ex- 
pected to establish, he ordered an inquisition of the most pri- 
vate character. The woman, Lascelles, was brought up from 
the country ; Dereham was arrested on a charge of piracy. 
But before any examination was had, the fact that Bulmer, Ma- 
nox, Dereham, were all found in her household, by her own 



SHE CONFESSES. . 429 

appointment, told fatally against her. To this was added, as 
usual, the folly of the old Duchess of Norfolk, who actually 
pointed Dereham out to a lady, in the queen's chamber, with 
a " There, that is he that fled to Ireland for the queen's sake." 

Lascelles persisted in her story. Dereham boldly avowed 
the truth. He had been troth-plighted to Katharine; had 
lived with her as a man with his wife ; they were regarded so 
by the servants ; they were wont to call one another husband 
and wife, before witnesses, and he had given her money when- 
ever he had it. He thought, doubtless, to save her life by 
this avowal ; as, if sustained, it would suffice to procure a di- 
vorce, and no one desired her blood. He positively denied 
any subsequent connection, even under the extremity of tor- 
ture, to which he was submitted with the utmost barbarity. 

Henry's proud and savage heart was almost broken. He 
burst into an agony of tears in the presence of all his council — 
what torture it must have needed to wring such testimony of 
weakness from his imperious character and merciless temper ! 
He had really loved this woman, and again and again, even 
after she had confessed her early sins, which she did earnestly, 
simply — and no one can read her depositions without seeing 
that they were sincere, also — though she still persevered in 
denying all subsequent wrong or defilement of the royal couch, 
his heart still yearned to her, still relented ; and though he 
could never, obviously, be reconciled to a woman so tainted, 
or receive her back to his bosom, he would have spared her 
— he was eager and earnest to spare her, and would have done 
so, could he have been separated from her by any legal pro- 
cess. How different from his conduct toward Anne Boleyn, 
whom, without half the evidence, he hunted with unrelenting 
fury to the block. 



430 HER ATTAINDER. 

Even Cranmer, it seems, content with her fall, would have 
spared her life, and urged her to admit a precontract with 
Dereham, which would have enabled them to grant a di- 
vorce. But whether from folly, or pride, she persisted. 
There had been no troth-plight — she had never thought to 
marry him — whatever he had obtained from her, was obtained 
by violence ! 

That sealed her fate beyond redemption. The king must 
be liberated. He could be liberated by her blood only. 
Therefore, her blood must flow. 

The privy council, unable to find the least shadow of evi- 
dence against her, in the matter of Dereham, determined that 
she should be accused of adultery with Culpepper. All her 
relatives, from the old duchess downward, were arrested for 
misprision of treason, and, though no evidence could be pro- 
duced against any one, except this — that Culpepper had been 
in the queen's chamber, on one occasion, in the presence of 
the Lady Rochefort, only — they were all found guilty. The 
queen, the Lady Rochefort, Culpepper and Dereham, of high 
treason — all the rest for misprision of treason, which was at 
that time also a capital offence. 

Culpepper and Dereham suffered first — the former be- 
headed, in deference to his rank, the other drawn and quar- 
tered, with all the horrors of the then existing penalty for 
treason. They both denied, to the last, the ofFence for which 
they died. 

The queen and Lady Rochefort were both condemned, 
unheard, and without defence, by attainder. It is stated that 
the queen had confessed, but it is evident, throughout the 
whole proceedings, that she confessed nothing, as she was, in- 
deed, guilty of nothing, subsequent to her marriage. 



HER DEATH. 431 

" When the commons entered," says Miss Strickland, " the 
assent of the king to the bill was given by commission, and 
the fatal sentence, le Boi le veut, was pronounced to the act 
which deprived a queen of England of her life, and loaded 
her memory with obloquy of so dark a hue, that no historian 
has ventured to raise the veil, even to enquire how far the 
charges are based on fact. 

On the 11th of February the fatal doom was decreed; on 
the thirteenth she was led to the scaffold, in company with 
Lady Rochefort, the innocent victim of the present plot of 
Cranmer, the guilty accomplice of Anne Boleyn's murder. 
They both died humbly, meekly, piously — confessing that for 
sundry misdemeanors and grievous offences, they deserved to 
die ; but both declaring their innocence of that for which they 
suffered. There is no doubt that they were innocent ; and 
from the stones of the tower yard, in front of the church of 
St. Peter ad vinculo., their blood still cries to heaven for 
vengeance. 

The rest of the prisoners received pardon, on various terms 
of composition ; but the fierceness with which Henry hence- 
forth raged against the blood of the Howards, the death of 
" Surrey of the deathless lay," and the doom of the Duke of 
Norfolk — prevented only by the previous death of the tyrant — 
can be attributed to no other cause than this. Acts so ab- 
surdly stringent, against any woman, who should marry the 
king, not being a maiden, and against all her relatives, if 
knowing the fact, they should fail to disclose it, now passed 
the parliament, that it was generally said in derision, that if 
the king should marry again, he must needs marry a widow 
— a jesting prophecy, which was realized by the fact— since 
no virgin would dare to accept him under the penalties. 



432 PUBLIC OPINION. 

So great was the detestation of his sanguinary conduct, and 
such the disgust in which he was now held, on the European 
continent, that, when he offered his hand to Christina, the dow- 
ager duchess of Milan, she declined it, with the remark, that 
" if she had two heads, one would have been at the service of 
his majesty of England." 



KATHARINE PARE, OF KENDAL. 



MAEBIED, 1543; DIED, 1548. 



She actually told him, "that it was better to be his mistress 
than his wife." Leti. Quoted by Miss Strickland. 

"Tis better said than done, my gracious lord. 
I am a subject, fit to jest withal, 
But most unfit to be a sovereign. 

Shakspeabe. King Henry VI. 



KATHARINE PARR. 

BORN, 1513 J MARRIED, 1543 ', DECEASED, 1548. 



She actually told him, "that it was better to be bis mistress 
than his wife. Letl 

'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord. 
I am a subject, fit to jest withal, 
But most unfit to be a sovereign. 

Shakspbake. 



CHAPTER IX. 



The sixth queen of Henry, and first Protestant queen of En- 
gland, was one of those fortunate women, who ran her course 
through the world, blessed and dispensing blessings, yet in a 
course so noiseless and serene, that she has scarce left a sign 
or a sound to tell of her transit Such is ever the case with 
the purest and holiest lives, as it is with the calmest and most 
peaceful epochs. 

Her gentle and graceful career, much of which was spent in 
the peaceful dales of Westmoreland, and the green lap of Ken- 
dale, wherein she was born, was like that of those men, cele- 
brated in the harmonious words of Longfellow, those innocent 
Acadian farmers, 

"Whose lives glided on, like rivers that water the woodland, 
Darkened by shadows of earth, yet reflecting the image of heaven." 



436 HER HANDIWORK. 

Beyond bare dates, and the brief statement that she was good, 
learned, virtuous, humble, meek, and beloved, wheresoever she 
went, there is little to relate of her — that she lived, was Hen- 
ry's wife, and, wonderful to tell, outlived him. At a very 
early age she lost her father, and also at a very early age she 
wedded the Lord Borough, a north country nobleman, who 
had a fine mansion at Catterick, and another at Newark upon 
Trent. He was a widower, with children, and was connected 
in about the fourth degree to Katharine. He died in 1528-&, 
and left Katharine in her fifteenth year, a widow, an heiress, 
young, beautiful, childless. 

For several years she remained a widow, residing for the 
most part at Sizergh castle, in the lake country, wherein is still 
shown an apartment known as the queen's chamber, in which 
are preserved specimens of her handiwork, a bed-quilt and 
toilet-cover of white satin, elaborately embroidered, in colors 
and on a material, which, according to Miss Strickland, far ex- 
ceed in quality, hue, texture, and finish, any productions of the 
present degenerate day. 

The lady I have quoted, is ever eager to celebrate even the 
smallest details concerning those whom she admires and takes 
under her patronage, and of these her most especial favorite, 
perhaps, because she was of the blood of the Stricklands, is 
Katharine Parr. She revels, .accordingly, in descriptions of 
all the scenes, halls, castles, bed rooms, withdrawing rooms, 
banqueting rooms, and all their furniture, which Katharine 
ever saw, or probably, or even possibly, might have seen or 
visited. I shall not follow her example. 

There are, in fact, but three or four things remarkable in 
her life. The first, that herself four times a widow, thrice of 
widowers, she was the sixth wife of a king whom she survived, 



HER LEARNING. 437 

and then married the only man she had ever loved, only to 
rue the marriage. That she was once on the point of perish- 
ing at the stake for her generous advocacy of the cause of the 
reformation, and that she escaped that fate only by her own ad- 
dress and cleverness. 

Her second marriage was to the Lord Latimer, who, du- 
ring his short married life, was engaged in the first northern 
insurrection, received his pardon in 1536, and would have en- 
gaged in the second, but for the prudence of his wife, who per- 
suaded him against it, and thus saved his life and preserved 
his fortunes. He died, leaving Katharine a second time a 
widow, still under thirty years of age, a greater heiress than 
before, still passing fair, still childless. He died in 1543, 
about a year after the death of the unfortunate Katharine 
Howard, whom his widow was destined to succeed. Shortly 
after his death, the lady, who had been always of a grave turn 
of mind, and addicted to learning — she wrote a beautiful man- 
uscript, and was skilled in composition, both in Greek and 
Latin — rather than to lighter accomplishments, became con- 
verted to the new doctrines, of which she continued from that 
day forth an ardent disciple, and, so soon as she had acquired 
the power, an eminent patroness and protectress cf all who 
professed it. 

Exactly how or when she became intimately acquainted 
with Henry, does not clearly appear ; but there had always 
existed a friendly connection between the families, manifested 
by an interchange of courtesies and presents, the Parrs claim- 
ing some blood connection with royalty. 

Katharine's sister, the Lady Herbert, wife of William, af- 
terward knight of the garter and first earl of Pembroke, of the 
second creation, was much about his court, and had figured as 



438 SIR THOMAS SEYMOUR. 

an important personage about both of his two last queens, lit- 
tle dreaming probably that her own sister would be the next. 
It has even been conjectured that Katharine herself was re- 
tained in the royal household, as preceptress or guardian to 
Henry's children ; but, for this conjecture, there is no founda- 
tion, beyond the fact, that after her marriage, she was a kind 
preceptress to the youthful princesses, that they were sincerely 
attached to her, and that the manuscript of Prince Edward 
closely resembles her own. 

At this period, Sir Thomas Seymour, the brother of the 
late Queen Jane, afterward duke of Somerset, the gayest and 
most glorious cavalier of the day, was struck with the charms 
of the pious young widow, and it seems that to him, both her 
ear and her heart she did seriously incline. But, at the same 
moment, a greater and more formidable suitor entered the 
lists, even the king himself; and, although Katharine did not 
express much delight at the honor, or meet the royal suit with 
much encouragement, Seymour withdrew, daunted probably 
by the idea of rivalling the cruel king, and in the end, as usual, 
the suit of royalty prevailed. It is not, indeed, very certain, 
how far, in such a case, the privileges of the sex might be al- 
lowed to prevail, and whether to refuse the king might not be 
held even a graver offence, than not to give him satisfaction as 
a wife. 

It is certain, at all events, that when the king first disclosed 
to the lady his intention of raising her to the crown, matrimo- 
nial, she actually showed terror instead of joy; and, indeed, 
told him in so many words, that it was better to be his "mis- 
tress than to be his wife." Nevertheless, she consented, and 
on July 10th, 1543, Cranmer granted a dispensation, and on 
the second day thereafter, the fair widow, throwing off the 



HER MERCIES. 439 

weeds of her second widowhood, before they had been two 
months worn, was led to the altar by her singular and formi- 
dable bridegroom. The royal coffers were still suffering under 
the same depletion, which had caused the nuptials of Katha- 
rine Howard to be celebrated with so little splendor, and so 
scanty ceremonial ; but if the wedding ceremony of Katharine 
Parr lacked the pomp and pageantry, which distinguished 
those of Katharine of Arragon and Anne of Cleves, neither 
were they marred by the indecent haste and unbecoming se- 
crecy, which disgraced those of Anne Boleyn and Katharine 
Howard. 

On the whole, her married life was less unhappy, than 
might have been expected. Henry, if he had not the furious 
passion for her, which he had for his earlier idols, had the 
fullest confidence in her judgment and virtue, and suffered 
her to exercise much influence over him. To her honor, be it 
spoken, that influence was ever exerted for the good. The 
flames of martyrdom were raging cruelly, the scaffold was 
streaming with noble and Catholic blood, and if she could 
neither quench the one, nor stop the red torrent which flowed 
from the other, she at least subtracted many victims, and that 
without distinction of sect or religion, from both. 

In the characters of his three children, most of what is 
good may be traced directly to her pure and classic educa- 
tion, her firm and sensible yet gentle system. 

He showed his confidence in her by appointing her regent 
of his realm, with greater powers than had ever before been 
given to a woman, when he went for the last time to wage 
war in France ; and, though on his return, the wiles of Gar- 
diner, Audley, and Wriothesley had nearly involved her in 
ruin, on a charge of heresy, so that the warrant for her arrest 



440 HER DANGER. 

was actually signed, and the guard despatched to arrest her, it 
needed but a few words from her persuasive lips, ere the dan- 
ger was overpassed. They were again " sweethearts and fast 
friends," and when the chancellor came with his beef-eaters to 
take her into custody, he got nothing for his pains but hard 
words — " beast ! " " knave ! " and " fool ! " were the mildest 
terms, which he vouchsafed to the most trusty and subservient 
ministers of his pleasures, when they chanced to offend him, 
and when Katharine would, on this occasion, have interceded 
for her enemy, "Ah ! poor soul!" said this most inconsistent 
of mortal kings or men, " thou little knowest, Kate, how little 
he deserveth this grace at thy hands. On my word ! sweet- 
heart, he hath been to thee a very knave." 

Shortly afterward, Henry himself departed from this life, 
giving up that crown which he had received amid the univer- 
sal joy of his subjects, in the midst of satisfaction and joy 
greatei*, if less noisy, than that which had hailed his coronation. 

By his death, he liberated many prisoners, the conqueror of 
Flodden among the rest, from the dungeon and the death- 
doom ; he liberated his kingdom from the terror, under which 
it had groaned and shuddered, during the last twenty years ; 
and his last fair wife, happier to be his widow than his wife, 
from chains, which, if gilded, were, nevertheless, chains, and 
that neither the lightest nor the least irksome. 

He, indeed, above all other men who ever lived, 

"Left a name at -which the world grew pale, 
To point a moral or adorn a tale," 

while she, his last wife, deserved in very deed the eulogium 
which was improperly bestowed upon another who deserved 
it not. 



THE QUEENS COMPARED. 441 

Katharine Parr it is, who, indeed, was " the fairest, discreefc- 
est, and most meritorious of all the six wives" of the worst 
husband, if not the wickedest man, who ever abused great 
talents, great powers, great position, and disgraced the crown 
of which she, his last consort, was, perhaps, the brightest or- 
nament. 

Except Katharine of Arragon, none other of his wives could 
compare, for a moment, with Katharine Parr, who, in addition 
to domestic virtues never surpassed, greatness meekly and 
mercifully borne, and high talents not wasted, but so used as 
to bring forth an hundred fold, united this high claim to the 
regard of posterity — 

The last wife of Henry VIII. was the first Protestant queen 
of England, and she was an English woman born ; even as 
persecuting Mary, the first-born daughter of that persecuting 
monarch, was its last Papist queen, and God grant she may be 
the last forever. 



THE END. 



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OPINIONS OF REVIEWERS. 

The universal interest that has always been felt in the romantic and tragical career of 
this unfortunate and beautiful queen, will render this biography one of living interest,— 
Olive Branch. 

The sale of three editions of this work attests its popularity. — N. Y. Times. 

The style iu which the present volume rehearses the story, will secure for it an extensive 
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It is a fall and corrected history of this remarkable personage. — N. Y. Evangelist. 

Our author throws a chain around his subject that will insure for it a success equal to 
the '"Josephine." — Newport Mercury. 

It is an affecting story, however told, and it is probably as near historic accuracy as 
an> other life of the beautiful Scotch Queen that we have. — Lutheran Observer. 

We commend this work to our readers who are inclined to tlv> study of history in 
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An old theme, but handled with the masterly style which characterizes everything 
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This is a fine library volume, and the universal interest felt in the fate of the ro- 
mantic and tragical career of Mary Stuart, will, no doubt, cause this Amerioan version of 
her life to be sought for. — Dollar Newspaper. 

Mr. Headley has performed his task faithfully and well. — Ravenna Star. ' 

"We think the author has du.ie full justice to his heroine, and has taken a more correct 
view of Mary as a woman, and as a Queen, than we have seen elsewhere. — Lowell Christ 
Ian Era. 

The value of the work is enhanced by the light it throws upon the history of some of 
the most important kingdoms of Europe. — Dundee Record. 

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The life of the lovely, unhappy and unfortunate Queen of Scotland is in this volume 
dilineated with rare faithfulness. — Racine Advocate. 
The work is full of exciting interest, and its influence is good on the young. — Galena A cfo 

This account of her life and character seems well adapted to popular use. — New 
England Farmer. 

The publishers have done well in bringing out this work at this time, when there is 
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